The Long Journey- BQ.2 Marathon RR Part 1

I have had to condense this post several times as it was getting out of hand.  And it is still out of hand, so this will have to be a two part RR.  This marathon was really more than a single day race to me, it was a point in time that followed 3 decades of running for the love of running, even when I wasn't very good at it.

And 3 decades of running history is hard to condense.  And basically it just boils down to the fact that I was never an athletic or fast kid.  I wasn't encouraged to be a runner.  No one pegged me to play sports.  I was awkward and slow.  I was always one of the slowest runners as a kid, and I KNEW this as a kid.  I knew I was slow.  Can anyone else relate?  Even in high school, I was mediocre at best during high school track, and that is probably being kind.  There was really no event for me.  I was not fast enough to do short events, and didn't have enough stamina or endurance to do long events.  And I embarrassed myself out there constantly.  I would get sick to my stomach thinking about meets and how girls would beat me by 20-30 seconds in an 800.  I mean, don't get me wrong.  I was a competitive kid.  I was competitive on the soccer field and could hold my own.  I wanted to be competitive in pure running, but the truth of it was, I just simply was not.  

But I always loved to run.  I read running books.  I read Runners World in my public library when I was a kid.  I read Jim Fixx's book when it was the only book available.  I knew what I was supposed to do to be a good runner, I just couldn't physically do it.

In college, a big run for me was 2 miles.  I was very proud of that.  I was slow.  My non-soccer friends were faster than me on runs.  My roommate would kick my butt on runs, which we did of course to work off the cafeteria food.  Even though I played collegiate soccer, chasing a ball for miles at a time like a big 90 minute fartlek, I was still just a slow, average runner when it came to just pure running.  I was actually a little embarrassed by it, truth be told, but I plodded on.  

After a soccer practice where our coach had us run 6 miles, and I was only 1 of 3 players that could actually run the full distance without walking (and I use the term "run" here lightly), I was encouraged by my cross country running friend to enter a 10k with her for fun.  I did...and loved it...mainly because there were only the 2 of us in our AG so I got a 2nd place award with my pedestrian time.  But I also loved it because I ran 6.2 miles!  Never as a kid could I have dreamed that I could run that distance without stopping or without feeling like the slowest person out there.  I entered 2 more little road races that year, and then when soccer season started back up I never entered a race again...

Until 5 years later when I decided to try to run a marathon.

I went from barely being able to run 2 miles at the time to "keep in shape for soccer" to deciding I was running a marathon.   There were no races, no 5ks, no nothing.  Just me, Team In Training, and some weird desire to run a marathon.  And I "ran" every dang step of that marathon in 4:35, and called my boyfriend Dave to tell him that it was the "best day of my entire life."  Friends, I was finally a runner.

And while a big portion of my blogging friends cannot relate to this, I know some of you can.  Some of you were or are like me.  Slow.  Not really athletic.  Want to be better.

So after that initial marathon, I still just chased the soccer dream.  I didn't enter any 5ks or get serious about running.  I loved my marathon experience, but I was a soccer player.   I didn't start running races until a few years later.  Once I committed myself to racing, I improved.  I saw paces I never thought someone like me could run in my local races.  I started to think I could qualify for Boston based on all of my running times.  I even had some marathon success with marathon #2 and dropped 50 minutes off of my initial marathon time.  And then I started having a lot of marathon bombs.  Some bombs were not my fault (ie. the infamous cancelled Chicago marathon of 2007) and some were totally my fault (ie. not training and then running a marathon thinking I could hold a BQ pace just because....) After 4 marathons in 1 calendar year between 2007-2008 I was done.  I never got the BQ.  I didn't feel I had come close to my potential.  But, I moved on to Ironman and fell in love.

And I hadn't run an open marathon since early 2008 until... I signed up for the Last Chance BQ.2 marathon.  RR Part 2 to come (As if marathons need these huge race reports.  Humor me :)