The Lead-up:
I hope to race the Boston Marathon in 2023, which requires a BQ before mid-September 2022. The obvious plan is to run a marathon close to the end of the qualifying window to really go for that BQ. But the thought of putting all my eggs in that one basket after not racing a marathon in years made me nervous, so I tossed around the idea of running a "practice" marathon earlier in the summer to build some confidence. I hadn't found one that looked like it would work smoothly into our going-to-be-crazy summer lives, though.
Life was packed in the way that could only possibly exist at Edwards AFB with busy big kids and baby twins, all while getting ready for a big move. "Marathon training" was most definitely not a thing. Base building, however, was most definitely a thing. As was slowly extending my long run duration to allow for a couple specific long runs I wanted to do as part of my "Farewell Tour of Edwards." Therefore, when I saw in early May that Mountains 2 Beach Marathon had been pushed back from Memorial Day (which had made it impossible for me to consider it) to the first weekend in June, well... my wheels started turning. I'd already been hitting 30+ mile weeks and had just checked off one of those must-do long runs on Edwards -- a 17-miler. It was just enough to work with and I figured if I could run 18 that weekend and 20 the next, I could consider going the distance in a month.
The race was going to be right after the movers were scheduled to drive away with our things, and we'd be busy repainting the house and wrapping up loose ends. My already non-existent sleep schedule was sure to be even worse. Move-out week sounded like a really stupid time for a race. But at the same time, it was only 2 hours away so it was the most convenient marathon option of the summer *by far* -- and we'd promised the kids one last beach hurrah anyway. So if I could survive the move-out... Maybe, just maybe I could pull this one out.
I got in those long runs as well as three 40-mile weeks. Move-out week was a total nightmare. We'd pulled a couple all-nighters in the past couple weeks and I'd barely averaged 3 hours of broken sleep, so I had pretty much written the race idea off. The movers were awful and didn't leave until midnight on Thursday night and my stress levels were through the roof as we were repainting and dealing with issues on Friday. I was talking to a friend and she was like, "You sound like you need a good, long run to run it off." The lightbulb went off and I was like, "YES. This is something that will take at least a solid 26.2 miles to work through."
But there was still a large to-do list of prepping the house for turnover and going to a goodbye party, etc., so who knew? We finally left the keys on the counter at 4:45pm on Saturday and figured if it was meant to be, we'd make it to the expo before it closed at 7. And what do you know? We barely did. They were nearly packed up but still technically open when we walked in and asked to register for the marathon! Oh, right -- "WE." It was mine and Matt's 13th wedding anniversary a couple days before, so I decided that 13 miles x2 sounded like an appropriate date haha. He'd be a horrible pacer, bless his heart, so it was really just for the quality alone time -- the most we'd had in the 10 months since the babies were born, by far. (Major props to my college kid brother Kaleb for letting us fly him out to help with all the things that weekend! We paid him with Disneyland, so fair enough.)
My goal wasn't to BQ, although I told Matt that if it was a great day, I probably *could* run a 3:33 on that course with my current fitness. The problem was that it was pretty hit or miss with actually feeling good while running, due to the extreme fatigue of averaging 4 broken hours of sleep a night for 10+ months straight. (You know, due to having overtired baby twins that didn't ever sleep remotely decently, because they never got to be home to have a normal baby schedule, because we lived on a military base in the middle of nowhere and had to travel 40+ miles away for 5 hours every afternoon in order for their big siblings to have any semblance of a normal life.) (And never getting any help with those cute baby twins.) (It was an extremely hard time of life logistically and I'm really glad it's over.) Aaaanyway... I'd have maybe one run a week that felt good but they mostly felt rather "meh," so it was hard to predict what kind of day my legs would have, you know?
I set out to really use M2B as a practice race! The goal was to build confidence in my ability to run a solid BQ at the end of the summer. For that to happen, I wanted to be mature with my pacing, ace my fueling, and hold BQ pace as long as possible. I figured it'd be a success if I could hang on through the half marathon mark, but I'd be thrilled if I could hold it through mile 18. And overall, I just wanted to have fun and enjoy the day!
Pre-Race:
Mountains 2 Beach Marathon sounds like it'll be a crazy downhill from the mountains... to the beach. But actually, it starts in Ojai which is only about 700 feet above sea level (but hey, part of the SoCal mountains nonetheless!) and has a lot of rollers, including a couple punchy little climbs right at the end. To put it in perspective, marathon time converters say it's about a minute slower than Boston, a few minutes slower than races like CIM and Indy, and 10ish minutes slower than the big downhill races. Add in the potential for heat (spoiler alert: we got a hot day!) and translation? Far from a gimme race. I'm a SoCal girl at heart, though, and any race that ends on a beach is right up my alley, so the M2B Marathon has been on my bucket list for awhile. Of course, I was doing fertility treatments in 2019 and then it was canceled in 2020 and 2021, so we had struck out all three previous years that we'd lived nearby. So YAY for rash, irresponsible decisions in 2022, right? Ha.
I loved the logistics for this race SO much. Stay at a hotel on the beach. (We stayed in one of our favorites!) Sleep until a semi-reasonable pre-race hour. Catch a bus just a few minutes away at 5 a.m. Be up to the non-freezing race start by 5:30! Pick a porta-potty line, get in a quick warm-up, drop the bags, and voila! Seriously so easy. (On the mom side of things, I used my nice electric pump prior to leaving and then used a manual on the bus to make sure I was starting on empty.)
The race had some hiccups and had to start about 20 minutes late, but we just went with the flow and used the extra time for an extra little snack and potty break. Not worth getting worked up about those things right before the gun goes off, you know? (Back to the mom stuff: I also realized during the delay that I hadn't actually re-hooked my sports bra after pumping, so hey! That was a win right there because that would have been an unfortunate way to race hahaha.)
I generally don't love running with or near pace groups -- they're great and all, but they tend to be too crowded for my liking and I prefer to run my own race anyway. But M2B's starting corral was clearly defined by pace groups (which is actually quite nice that it's that organized!) and started everyone in waves according to those times. So unless I wanted to weave through a bunch of people targeting a slower pace than me, I needed to actually position myself around the time I wanted to run. This meant smack dab in between the very popular 3:30 and 3:35 pace groups. Which was totally appropriate, just crowded! (I got clipped multiple times, which is stressful and could have been bad if I hadn't caught myself each time, you know?) But I'm getting ahead of myself.
The Race:
The gun finally went off and we were on the road, heading through the charming town of Ojai with beautiful golden morning light shining through the palm trees. Ah, now THIS was going to be a lovely run!
It is a seriously *dreamy* course and I was feeling all sorts of nostalgic, knowing this would be our last run while living in SoCal this round. Nearly 10 years ago to the day, we'd been in that same area for a race (and swan song trip up the PCH) before moving away from SoCal that time, too! In fact, it was Matt's second-ever triathlon, that race in June 2012... who ever would have thought we'd end up *here?* All the feels, you know? We spent the entire race reminiscing about sweet memories and making plans for our eventual return, and the whole thing felt like one big love letter to our Southern California lives. (The good parts, that is haha.) Just the perfect way to wrap things up and go out on a high!
Our watches beeped in sync right as we passed the mile 1 and mile 2 markers. There are some little gradual climbs through the town and a u-turn somewhere around mile 3, but we didn't see that marker. Next thing we know, our watches beeped 4 miles and that marker was nowhere in sight, either. Oh wait, there it was -- almost a half mile down the road. Our watches beeped 4.45 miles as we passed it. "Someone must have put it in the wrong spot," I observed aloud. But then the 5-mile marker came at 5.45 miles. And then 6.45 miles. We were still right in the mix of the 3:30 and 3:35 pace groups and there had been a steady stream of racers the entire time. All of the watch beeps were happening around ours, and all of the runners' confused comments kept echoing every time we'd pass a sign. "Are you reading way over, too?" "I have almost an extra half mile, do you?" "Have you been off since the turn-around, too?" And on and on. No one knew what was going on, but at least we were all experiencing the same thing so we knew we weren't crazy.
I just kept hoping that the signs were placed wrong and expecting the next one to be right. But as the miles wore on, it became increasingly clear that wasn't the case. After mile 10 was also an extra 0.45 miles long, the 3:30 pacers started picking up the pace to 7:45 on a slight incline. "They're going to try to make up for it," I observed to Matt. He asked if I planned on doing the same but I knew better for myself that day! I was feeling good and wanted to run a smart race, not blow up trying to hit some arbitrary time by running paces that felt too fast for me early on. "That pace is too hot," I explained. "I'm just going to run my race."
(Side note that it can feel kind of weird to say that a pace is too fast when it is slower than your previous marathon paces, and a half minute slower than your PR marathon pace. But we have to meet ourselves where we're at!!! I was 10 months postpartum with twins, not at my prime fitness. Drop the comparisons to your former self and make the most of your current situation.)
The hard thing, mentally, is that I *was* feeling pretty good. It was probably a perfect combination of the company and the course and the adrenaline (and caffeine haha), but my heart was so full and my legs were hanging in there! A sub-3:35 BQ time was a real possibility ... but not with an extra half mile. I've become really good as a coach at knowing what my athletes are capable of running and turns out, I know myself pretty well, too. I knew my "great day" predictions could happen if I fought for it -- and I also knew a sub-3:30 wasn't in the cards, which are the paces it would have taken to make up for the extra mileage.
But man, it is HARD to stay motivated and push hard when you don't even know if your time will count, or how much further you're going to have to run, or what the heck happened to begin with. And to be off like that for 22+ miles? Just SO demoralizing. Major props to every single runner who hung in there, because those are mental games no one should have to play when running a marathon! Especially those who were gunning for a BQ (without a back-up race in mind!) or a PR or just a freaking good marathon, you know? I tried to cheer everyone on as we went because it was an extra tough day! Sure enough, we passed many of the people I recognized from the 3:30 group who had bonked in the final miles -- you usually just can't decide to run 5 minutes faster on a whim, you know?
Anyway, the miles ticked away and I was still on track at the half marathon mark... and the 18-mile mark! Woohoo! My mental games all day had worked and I'd made it! Of course, now there was the conundrum that 1) my mental plan had only taken me to that point, 2) I was freaking tired, and 3) I could still hit a BQ, gosh dang it! So no throwing in the towel haha. But also, who knew if it would even be a real BQ when all was said and done? No one still had any idea what was going on, but I kept hoping that there would be a solution somewhere, somehow, so I couldn't just give up.
I was hitting a bit of a rut, though, so it was time to problem solve -- I took my next fuel a little early and popped in some caffeine gum, too. Matt was running maybe 10 yards ahead of me at one point during that stretch and I reeled him in, "You know, it doesn't motivate me to have you that far in front of me," I explained. To which he responded without thinking, "Sorry, you were just going so slow!" Hahaha. See what I mean about not being cut out for official pacing duties? Luckily I found this entertaining -- and luckily, my strategy worked and it wasn't long before I started to rally.
Around mile 20, I told Matt that I thought I could still get a "moral BQ" -- hitting that time at the 26.2 mile mark, wherever that happened to be on the course. But that it would be really hard.
"You've done WAY harder things," he said almost nonchalantly, not missing a beat.
And in fact, he was right. After what I'd just been through the past couple years, pushing myself for 6 or 7 more miles doesn't even register on my "hard" radar.
It was the perfect thing to say to get me through.
(And made up for the "slow" comment, too. Haha)
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| Almost to the ocean! |
I stayed steady up the final hills and finished strong, making my final mile one of my fastest @ 7:51 pace! It was a dang good feeling. I'd hoped the finish line would magically be moved up to compensate, but alas, the watches ticked 26.2 miles -- in 3:32 -- as we were still alone on the oceanfront (which was quite an enjoyable stretch, for the record). I'd gotten my "moral BQ," though! At 10 months postpartum with twins, and after all of the move-out craziness and truly hard things before that. I'm still really proud of it!
Post-Race:
In the end, I ran 26.73 miles @ 8:06 pace, comfortably under the 8:12 pace needed to qualify for Boston. (And then I died on the pavement for just a little while haha.) The extra 0.53 miles minus the 0.45 miles that had been measuring long since mile 4 was about right -- it tracked with the standard of about a tenth of a mile extra in incidental weaving etc. The extra 0.45 miles, on the other hand... Let's just say we were all very curious to find out what happened there. And there were no immediate answers other than "We know it was wrong; we're figuring it out." Which left us all in a very strange place of not even having an answer to a simple question of, "What time did you get," you know? Again, I was grateful I'd already been planning on another marathon (I want a 5+ minute BQ buffer just in case), so it was neither here nor there for me -- but I felt SO bad for everyone else whose BQ's and PR's were hanging in the balance.
We left the race pretty quickly after to get back to the kids and just figured we'd get news eventually. The race finally explained that the cops had directed everyone the wrong way (I don't blame them at all! Always just grateful they're there to support the race) before the u-turn, which added the extra mileage. They said they recertified the course we actually ran and would calculate and submit our adjusted times to USATF and Boston and everyone, and would wait to find out if they'd be accepted. Insert shrug emoji here, right?
Listen, having the race add an extra almost-half-mile to the official marathon course during the race and not knowing what was going on? That REALLY stunk. Like, a LOT. As stated before, it was really difficult to hang in there mentally with the issue popping up so early, and it messed up everyone's race, even if they were still able to run well. But also, things happen and the race had been through so much already with being forced to cancel twice and then postpone last minute. I'm sure none of this will happen again, and this was truly such a beautiful course and a race worth running, so I'm rooting for M2B in the future! I'd recommend it to anyone.
But I would also recommend for the race to have more gels available on course... thank goodness I'd packed enough on my own! This feels like a good time to share that I had five gels during the race (Gatorade Endurance), along with carrying my own calorie-filled handheld bottle (well, sharing with Matt), of which I had *three* bottles worth! I was still breastfeeding for two babies and it was a hot day, so staying well-hydrated and fueled made all the difference. All in all, it was a massive success in the "practice race" category -- I felt like I fueled perfectly and also paced it very maturely, so it was a big confidence boost and a win all around, regardless of time.
As for the remainder of my race experience, we met up with the kids shortly after their breakfast so they barely had time to miss us. We spent the rest of the day playing at the beach, and in the pool, and riding a surrey bike around the palm-tree lined park, and playing at the park, and then heading back to the beach for a beautiful sunset. It was, very sincerely, my idea of a *perfect* day.
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