Successful 29 hours in SoCal! It went a little something like this:
Pre-Race:
Saturday Morning: Coach my daughter's soccer team to the final win of their undefeated season! Aaand then immediately leave for the airport.
2:23 p.m.: Step off the plane at LAX
2:37 p.m.: Little brother Christian picks me up at the curb (he flew into SNA that morning) and we start heading north!
4:23 p.m.: Arrive at race expo in Ventura.
4:30 p.m.: Pick up bibs with 30 minutes to spare! Buy a pair of running jorts on clearance at the expo (the level of excitement I felt for this purchase was very high). Say hi to the beach.
5:30 p.m.: Shake out run by the ocean!
7:00 p.m.: Pick up Olive Garden to go in Thousand Oaks. Check into hotel. Eat dinner. Realize we forgot to buy water. Go to gas station across the street and overpay for said water because it was convenient. Set out race gear. Realize I left all of my toiletries at home. Drive to Walmart where water would have been cheap. Buy toiletries. Head back to hotel. Shower. Get ready for bed.
9:00 p.m.: Realize I once again failed to make a playlist. Create playlist in bed. Future Ashley thanks me for this.
9:59 p.m.: Fall asleep.
3:01 a.m.: Wake up! Realize I threw away the utensils meant for putting peanut butter on my bagel. Decide to use pen cap in its place? Eat breakfast. Lay back down for 5 minutes before realizing I actually needed to be getting ready.
4:12 a.m.: Leave hotel room.
4:48 a.m.: Load buses.
5:24 a.m.: Arrive at race start. Get in porta potty line.
5:40 a.m.: Eat some chews. Do a little dynamic warm-up.
5:54 a.m.: Get to start line and convince myself to line up just in front of 3:15. Replay Christian's voice an hour before, telling me I have nothing to lose. Realize I'm surrounded by 90% men. Feel total imposter syndrome. Try to tell myself it's okay -- I belong there.
6:00 a.m.: HERE WE GO!!!
Marathon:
I was seriously questioning my life choices as the gun went off, but no backing out now! It was a whopping 97% humidity at the start and my poor "it's still winter in dry Colorado" self felt it. Thankfully it was "only" 58 degrees (technically still warm for a marathon starting temp, but let's be real, it could be waaaay worse), so it wasn't a race killer. M2B has really fantastic pace groups -- which are not usually my jam, but the result is that the crowd of runners around you really has the same-ish goal, so you're moving at the same-ish pace. My plan, therefore, was to hang with the guys around me for as long as possible -- but especially through the climbing around Ojai in the beginning.
A couple miles in, it was clear that I didn't feel "great!" like I had in Boston. Not surprising, since I'd actually built/peaked/tapered for Boston and was fresh then vs. trying to pull off this marathon 34 days later. "You don't have to feel great, just good enough," I reminded myself. And I was feeling good enough that I was hanging with the guys, so all was well. I clicked off the first 5K at 7:28 pace -- right on target.
My very favorite part of the race came at the mile 4 marker -- when my watch read 4.01 instead of 4.45!!! (See last year's post for THAT story here.) (PS for comparison to last year, I ran 26.33 miles this time. An extra tenth mile is normal in a marathon, and this race course has some heavily-cambered roads, so I favored the better-cambered parts of the course over trying to run 100% perfect tangents.) This course takes you for a loop around Ojai for the first 10Kish, and it's just so dreamy running past orchards, down streets lined with palm trees in the morning's golden hour light.
The miles just kept clicking along, hanging out in the 7:teens now. I don't run these paces very often up at 7200 feet at home now, and it's been a long time since I did run them often, having spent the past few years doing fertility treatments + twin pregnancy + taking care of baby twins. So my brain's initial reaction every time it sees those paces in a race is like "SOS! Slow down so you don't blow up!" And I have to repeatedly remind myself that it's okay -- those are in my wheelhouse again. Those are really my correct paces. (Which is really freaking exciting!)
When the half marathon marker came, I was still in that group of guys I'd started with -- still ahead of the 3:15 pacer, still hanging in there!!! And it was feeling manageable.
When you race two marathons so close together, you *know* that there is going to be some residual fatigue in your legs. You *know* it's going to show up eventually, at some point in the race. You just don't know quite when, and you sure as heck hope it's later rather than sooner. Well, the Boston Marathon in my legs made itself known loud and clear when we hit the steep 50+ ft hill at mile 15. Suddenly my legs that had been feeling fine with the early hills and rollers were just like, "Excuse me? We JUST did this!" People started walking around me and that was an awfully tempting idea, but I told myself that I was still in this and just had to take it one mile at a time. I hung in there, and that mile clicked over at 7:35. But then some of the guys opened it up on the other side of that hill, running low 6 for a section and I just couldn't go with them. I still ran a 7:02 mile there, though, so that up/down had evened itself out and my legs were still turning over well.
I kept it together for the next couple miles, too, but man, my muscles were just feeling that fatigue! Around mile 18, my morning "do not disturb" time had expired on my phone, and a text came through from Matt. The year before, I'd asked him to run that marathon with me with the sole job of "saying nice things at mile 18." He was back home on daddy duty this year, but still pulled through! I didn't even read the text but I didn't need to. At this point in the 2022 race, I'd told him I thought I could make the BQ time but that it would be hard. He had replied so nonchalantly -- "You have done WAY harder things." Seeing his text pop up on my watch now reminded me of that and I could feel him cheering me on.
I'd been a little worried about my own mental fatigue going into the race. We've had a LOT of major, unexpected, super-stressful, adulting-style issues over the past few weeks and I've felt very maxxed out mentally. Could I keep THAT part of my game together late in the race? So far, so good and I was very calmly just coaching myself through one mile at a time.
On a great day, I'd hoped I could go sub-3:15 (NYC qualification!), but I was realistic in acknowledging that I'd literally just barely run a marathon so that might not be possible. I went into the race saying I just really, really wanted to be back in the 3:teens. So my late-race mental math was initially based around that: If I ran 8-minute miles now, could I still make it? The good news was, I wasn't running 8s. I was still in the 7:30s. That meant a sub-3:15 was still possible! But I knew the awful hills at the end were looming. I just had to keep pushing and not blow up.
Coming into town, there were some spectators cheering, which was nice! I particularly appreciated the guy who yelled out "Nice outfit! I like your colorway!" Hahaha definitely the first time my "colorway" has been complimented in a race, and frankly, I liked my colorway, too, and it was such a unique cheer that it made me smile. Thanks for the boost, random nice guy!
The Ventura Main Street hill is often referred to as the "Heartbreak Hill" of Mountains 2 Beach. It is 66 feet of climbing at mile 23-24 of the marathon... which just feels cruel when you're in it! My poor legs had nothing more to give on a climb like that, but I just kept putting one foot in front of the other, for a mile split of 8:05. The 3:15 pacers passed me toward the top and I was like... shoot. But my racing brain math said they were maybe going a little too fast, so I didn't let myself spiral. There was another small hill during mile 25 and my watch beeped at 7:46. Yeah, those late climbing miles were slower, but I was still running well and my dream goal for the day was still a possibility if I kept fighting for it. I clocked in a 7:35 for mile 26. Once I hit that final stretch, I used up everything I had left -- running my final 0.33 miles @ 7:09 pace.
I crossed the line and saw my time: 3:14:20!!! Oh my gosh, I'd actually done it.
I've had a lot of feels with my running in this postpartum-with-twins era, as it feels like a metaphor of getting my life back after all the really hard things we went through simultaneously. (Infertility, Matt's near-death experience, IVF, hemorrhaging during pregnancy, almost losing my newborn baby, and the long recoveries from all of the above.) A 3:14:20 is just 2 minutes exactly off my lifetime PR, and on a harder course! That feeling of "I'm back" combined with the "Holy crap, that was so hard" led to me needing to cry it out a bit in that finisher chute (thank goodness for sunglasses).
I've worked really hard to get here, in many ways. That "Mission: Accomplished" feeling? Feels pretty dang good.
Post-Race:
9:25 a.m.: Hobble out of the finisher chute. Announce to my brother that I'd like to die for a minute, please. Apologize in advance for the hefty amount of whining I'll be doing for the next hour but promise I'll get over it quickly.
9:30 a.m.: Try to get some calories in me while I wait for my turn at the post-race massage. Christian had signed us up right after he finished the half marathon -- bless him!
10:00 a.m.: Decide that post-race massages are the best things ever invented.
10:10 a.m.: Start hobbling around in search of my friends Liz & Naomi.
10:20 a.m.: Found them!
10:40 a.m.: Finally functional enough to walk onto the beach. Wish I was slightly more functional so I could take my shoes off and put my feet in the water. Take a few pictures. Enjoy the view.
11:05 a.m.: Hobble up to the shuttle buses.
11:15 a.m.: Force-feed myself snacks on the shuttle bus.
11:40 a.m.: Hobble from shuttle bus to car.
12:15 p.m.: Hobble up stairs. Shower. Pack up.
12:54 p.m.: Hobble down stairs. Start driving south!
1:45 p.m.: Finally, my In-N-Out burger. And fries. And Diet Coke. And strawberry shake. I want it ALL. Continue driving south.
3:30 p.m.: Ahhh, the sweet, sweet view of Crystal Cove driving south on the PCH. Literally one of my favorite driving views in the world.
4:00 p.m.: Park at favorite beach. Realize it means walking DOWN a steep hill. Say my prayers. Survive.
4:05 p.m.: Walk onto favorite beach. Step into ocean. Love life.
5:30 p.m.: Head back up the hill. Say "I'm really proud of myself" out loud. Brother asks if I'm referring to the marathon or walking up the beach path. "The beach path," I answer honestly. Haha!
6:00 p.m.: Return rental car at SNA airport.
7:17 p.m.: Board flight!
Not a bad 29 hours, if I may say so myself. :)
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