After a Friday evening of travel, we got up early on Saturday morning (2/13/16). K went out for a run and got to recon the scene and course for the Trials while I took it easy at the hotel - we had a busy day ahead! Around 9:30am, we headed down Figueroa toward the start/finish area of the race then I went a bit further down to the Oiselle cheer location and K joined me after the start of the men's race.
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| Lauren Fleshman |
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| Oiselle Cowbell Corner |
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| We moved up to have a better vantage point |
The Trials course consisted of an initial 2.2 mile loop north of downtown followed by a 6-mile loop south of downtown that the runners did 4 times, so it was a spectator-friendly course that allowed us to see the runners 8 times (although apparently the runners didn't care for all of the turns). The men started at 10:06am and the women started at 10:22am, which made for a tough day in the heat for many of the runners with temps warming into the 70's by the mid-day finish. 64% of the men and 75% of the women finished....meaning 36% of the men and 25% of the women DNF'd. Given that these are the top marathoners in the country, I was obviously concerned about my own race the following day.
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| Meb and Rupp on the final lap |
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| Amy and Shalane put on a clinic in teamwork |
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| The pass: Des overtook Shalane for 2nd place in the final stretch of the last lap |
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| Kara fighting all the way to the end |
Once the top finishers were done, we dashed over to the Convention Center next door to our spectating spot to pick up my race packet then grabbed lunch on the way back to the hotel. We had a couple of hours to relax before the next round of events. First up was the UCAN event at the J.W. Marriott at LA Live with Meb and other top athletes.
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| Meb and Ritzenhein: Contrasting emotions from the day's race |
Then, we rushed over to the Los Angeles Athletic Club for the Oiselle OTQ party for dinner, drinks, and celebrating the 18 qualifiers from Oiselle. It was great to be included in such an event, but I'll be honest though - I kept checking my watch because I knew that we were out later than I should have been given that I was running a marathon in the morning! But, I was definitely glad that we stayed as long as we did in order to hear Kara's speech.
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| The Fierce Flyers of Oiselle |
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| Lots of love for KG from her coach, Heather, and the founder of Oiselle, Sally |
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| Nothing but love for KG in the room |
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| Red, white, and blue - Go USA! |
As we were leaving, I passed by the winner from the women's race hanging out in the hallway by the next room, so I got to congratulate her on her race. We actually had the chance to talk with Amy more extensively last year when she was in town during an event at Luke's.
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| The third floor was the place to be with Kara, Amy, and Shalane all there celebrating |
Not exactly ideal prep for a marathon the next day - 7+ miles of walking and minimal down time. I'd do it all over again though! #runnerd
RACE DAY-AKA Valentine's Day
Going into this race I had been dealing with a minor injury in the taper period. I had some pain on the top of my left foot develop after my last weekend of big miles (22 on Saturday followed by 8 on Sunday) - most likely extensor tendonitis. I got multiple massages, iced daily, took an anti-inflammatory daily, loosened and ultimately changed the lacing on my shoe, but I'm sure the overall decrease in mileage during taper is probably what helped the most. Thankfully, the pain all but subsided by the race, although I still had a nagging concern of how my foot would feel on race day.
But, more than anything, my expectations and race plan were dictated by the weather. Once the initial weather forecast came out in the final 2 weeks ahead of the race, it was clear that race day was likely going to be unseasonably warm, especially considering the race had been moved up nearly a month given the heat of last year's race in March. The situation became nearly laughable (read highly concerning) when the weather forecast predicted a high in the low 90's at one point. I've said it before and I'll say it again - I am not a good warm weather runner. Some people can handle the heat well and still perform, but I am just not one of those people. So, once I saw the weather forecast, I immediately threw out any performance expectations for this race and tried to reframe it as an opportunity to enjoy the festivities more on Saturday (which I did). Obviously, it was disappointing to not be able to truly test my fitness and training, especially since I had made the switch over to Team Mac in the recent months leading up to this race. But, I have had enough experience by now to know that in the battle of Mel running 26.2 vs. the weather, the weather is undefeated in that match-up.
All that being said, I went into this race pretty lax in terms of my race day preparations (which is highly atypical for my Type A control-freak personality). I woke up around 5am and got ready to head out to the shuttle buses. In between all of the activities the day before, I didn't do a great job of prepping all my stuff for the morning (more to come on that in a minute). But, I managed to get myself out the door a few minutes before 5:30am and walked a couple of blocks over to pick up my shuttle bus to the race start. I was surprised to see a long line of folks waiting at the pick-up location without buses lined up to ensure everyone got to the start quickly. I waited about half an hour to get on a bus, and then once we were finally on our way, of course there was traffic getting on/off the highway to get to the start at Dodger Stadium. Thankfully, we had already gone through a security screening to get on the bus, so we didn't have to do that upon arrival at the stadium because it was already 6:15am and I was feeling pretty rushed.
I honestly found the start area to be pretty unorganized and I was running back and forth trying to figure out exactly where I was supposed to go for the seeded corrals. I was also checking the porta-potty lines, which were (not surprisingly) fairly long. The elite women started at 6:45am, and I knew the seeded corrals were going to close at some point, but I wasn't exactly sure how much time I had. I ran over to check the bathroom lines in the stadium, and I knew I wouldn't make it with the limited time I had, so I just made my way to my corral chiding myself for making such a newbie mistake of not allowing enough time to go the bathroom before the race. It's one thing to not put pressure on myself for the race, but I should still have respected the fact that I had 26.2 miles to cover that morning and put a little more effort into race day prep. Once in my corral, I started to pack up my waist pouch and took out my iPod only to realize that again I had made a stupid mistake and hadn't charged it the day before! I had spent a lot of time working on my playlist the week before the race, so I was mad at myself for making another careless mistake. But, there was nothing I could do at that point except see how much juice it had left and see how far it would get me. The race hadn't even started yet and I was feeling like such a rookie.
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| Start of the LA Marathon at Dodger Stadium |
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| Looking for a bathroom and ended up getting a pic of the stadium instead |
Given the warm conditions, my race plan was to start closer to 9:30min/mile pace than 9:00 then pick it up if I could later in the race. I knew that if I started with 9:00min/mile pace in that weather, then I would surely blow up (as I had in my recent races). I had promised myself (and K) that I would shoot for a half closer to 2:04-2:05 than 2:00 then re-evaluate. Throughout the race, I never really checked my pace/mile on my watch because I just wanted to run whatever felt easy...and I figured my body would settle in 9:20-9:30 as an easy pace. And, it did.
I'm thankful that I stuck to my plan to start conservatively because there were a lot of hills in the first 10k. I had been anticipating a hill around mile 4 that I remembered from when K ran this race in 2013. I was spectating there that day and I distinctly remember thinking that it was a pretty big hill and I would surely have walked it if I was running. Fast forward 3 years and I found myself face to face with that same hill. I had told K that I didn't really want him there looking for me because I didn't want to be shamed if I ended up walking that hill. But, to my surprise, I made it up (and the ones that followed in the next few miles).
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| My view of the hill as a spectator in 2013 |
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| Japanese taiko drum ensemble at the top of the hill |
Everything went fairly well for the first couple of hours. I was running an easy, relaxed pace; taking water, salt, Gatorade, gummies as I needed; and enjoying the course. I was surprised to see K around mile 11 on Hollywood Boulevard, and I flashed him a thumbs up to let him know that I was doing okay and sticking to my plan.
Around mile 16 or so, I stopped for the first time to walk through a water stop and massage my right quad that was starting to feel tight. It was around this point that I started to notice that I was feeling pretty warm. But, we were entering Beverly Hills, which is part of the course that I had been looking forward to so I tried to keep it together, especially on Rodeo Drive.
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| No time to stop and shop! |
But, I was definitely descending into a rough patch that would follow me for the next few miles. I started walking more, drinking more, and dousing myself with more water every chance I could. I started doing mental arithmetic trying to compute how much longer it was going to take at that pace (which we all know is NEVER a good sign). My running pace never really changed - it was just interspersed with more stretches of walking as the sun continued to bore down on me.
Finally, FINALLY, things started to turn around in the last few miles. As we approached Santa Monica, the course turned slightly downhill, a fog enveloped the runners, and the temperatures dropped slightly with a cool breeze coming from the ocean. Only then was I able to really run again like I knew that I could. I have never finished a marathon as strong as I did in LA - clearly I still had something left in the tank, but I just couldn't use it in the heat. Who has their fastest mile as their last? I finished the last 2k at an average 8:45 pace.
The stats: 4:25 finish.
Top 15% of women, 19% of women 35-39, 24% of finishers
Clearly it was a slow day at the office with stats like that.
So, this was the slowest race of the 4 marathons that I have done in the past 18 months. K noted that starting as conservatively as I did ultimately didn't help me get to the finish line any faster. So, the jury is still out in terms of the best pace and race strategy for me in a marathon. Even though it was a slow race, I knew that it likely would be in that heat. The weather may have won again, but I'll be back for another round soon. Onward to Eugene on May 1st because...
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