When Life Hands You Lemons (reprise): A Random Saturday Morning Marathon

Distance: MARATHONNNNNNNN (26.22)

Previous PR: 4:17:43 (Chicago, 2016)

Result: 4:03:46

 Hey, y'all, remember this:

Pre-"Race" Thoughts:

Two days ago, I decided I was going to run a marathon today.

Why? Because, within twenty four hours, I went from having two highly functioning ears to being profoundly (and very likely permanently) deaf in my right ear (SSHL).

To have something so permanently life-altering come out of NOWHERE... Well, let's just say that dealing with changes in what's for dinner because we're missing an ingredient is hard for me to accept, so you can imagine how I'm handling this. 

My training partner had 17mi on her schedule. I'd missed her long 22mi run last week because I was sick in bed. I decided that all I wanted to do was run this s__t out. Maybe I'd do the 22 I'd missed. Maybe I'd say "nah, let's go all the way". I just felt this incredible need to push my body to do something amazing, to prove to myself I was still capable of something, to have control over something... when everything else felt like a freefall. 

I'd never planned on actually running a full marathon this training cycle (my training partner is doing Berlin in a few weeks, but I've really just been training alongside her "for support"), but this just kind of felt right. I haven't run in about a week since I've been sick. That counts as a taper, right? Should be fine... 

Goals

I thought about making this a real "race report", with my 90/50/10% goals, but, truly, I didn't even know if running the full distance (at any pace) was a 90% or a 10% goal until I was about 10mi in this morning.

90% Sure I could run the 17 with my partner, at a respectable pace
50% Sure I could do 20
10% Sure I could do the full marathon, or would even want to

Ultimately, I settled on these, if I was able to run the full distance:
90% Goal: 4:45
50% Goal: 4:30
10% Goal: 4:15

The Night Before

I took the day off work because I couldn't possibly focus on buildings when, at least once an hour, I'd have a thought about how being deaf in one ear will affect my life that sent me into hysterical crying. All I wanted to do was Google everything I possibly could about this new diagnosis, and just let my feelings take priority over everything else. 

I didn't really prepare myself very well at all for a marathon. By 4pm, the only things I'd eaten were a sandwich and latte at brunch with husband at 10:15am. I tried to find some motivation to make tomorrow feel like a marathon, and made a half-baked attempt at my usual pre-26.2 meal of frozen macaroni and cheese (for the sodium), ham, and broccoli. I barely made my calorie count for the day, thanks to an old-fashioned on the side. 

We stayed up later than I wanted with family game night. I found myself distracted with sniffles (sick? just residual from so much crying? who knows...), and thoughts of how I really hadn't prepared at all for the run tomorrow. 

I took a few minutes before bed to layout some clothes, KT tape (to prevent chafing between my sports bra and back), and an old pace band I never used from my last real marathon race (Chicago, 2016). I threw some Gatorades in the freezer, and decided I would run the 3-4mi down to the river to meet my training partner, just to get some extra distance banked. Then I went to bed, and tried to sleep with the constant ringing sounds I'll likely have forever in my newly deaf ear. 

The "Plan"

4:25am Run 3-4mi solo down to the river

5:00am Meet Training Partner for her 2mi WU
5:20am Training Partner begins 12-15mi @ MP. I run.
7:30am-ish Training Partner and I finish her run. My husband and kids meet me for the last 10K, assuming I feel like it
8:30am-ish Family hangout time at the playground

Course? Nope. We didn't really have that planned out. My TP had a loose route planned, and I just kind of figured I'd keep running after that however far I wanted to. 

The Morning Of

I woke up at 3:30am, 15min before my alarm, and came to the realization that there was no way I could get everything I needed down to the river, because I was running from the house. There went my plan of having a couple water/Gatorade bottles "on course" and a snack for after the run. Whoops.

I had thoughts of going for a 4:15 (previous PR=4:17), but the only pace band I could find was 4:10. That seemed... ambitious. Like, 10% goal ambitious. While It's totally within my training range and something I can physically do, it's not at all what I wanted to stress about today. Still, I tried to put on the 5 year old tattoo. It didn't work. I scraped off the two small pieces that stuck to my skin, and casually gazed at the 9:3X first mile pace and 2:05 half. 

Today was about overcoming something for me. One of the things I saw in a support group for people with my condition (SSHL) was a tattoo idea of the American Sign Language sign for "I love you". 

So I took some reflective tape and made the same design on my sports bra for the morning.

I threw a couple Gatorades in my shorts' side pockets, mace and a whistle in the waistband, and a whole bunch of honey stingers in my handheld, and headed off, for whatever the morning held in store.

The Run

Miles 1-3: These felt harder than I wanted them to, but I was pretty pleased that I was keeping around a 9:30/mi pace. At this point, I wasn't sure if I wanted to try to join my TP for her MP miles (but keep them more like a 9-9:15) or just play it safe and hit solid 9:30s for as long as I could. 

Miles 4-5: I slowed a bit on these (9:55ish), to let my TP warm-up. We enjoyed nice chatter, with her fully aware of my situation and kindly positioning herself on my left, so I could hear her as we ran. 

Miles 6-10: I opted against joining her for her MP miles. If I could just hold a 9:30, I thought, that would give me my best chance for the long run I wanted. I enjoyed running essentially alone through the dark pre-sunrise roads, thinking about anything and everything. 

Miles 10-13: As I closed in on 13, I realized I felt great. I hit just under the 2:05 mark, and it was here that I started seriously thinking, "OMG, I can do this. I can run a marathon today, AND I can probably hit a PR." Such a contrast to the last marathon I raced (Chicago, 2016), where I felt spent at the half, and was already just over my goal pace. Having several minutes "banked" where I could positive split (on a flatter/easier part of this course) really helped me, mentally.

Miles 13-18: I hit the lap button at 13.11 on my left wrist watch, and decided I would just look at my average pace to guide me for the rest of the run. I knew I was already well under 9:30 for the first half, so if I could just hit around 9:30 for the second, I'd have it made. My average pace for these miles was closer to a 9:20. 

I did have one moment of absolute terror on this run, where my good ear started hearing screeching, ringing noises, that just kept getting louder and weirder. I kept looking around, hoping to see the source. For about half a mile, I started believing that whatever happened in my right ear was happening in my left, which was really crippling. It kept getting louder, too. And then I saw a sad little car dragging part of its body along the ground, at about 5mph, coming up behind me. I have never been so grateful to see a mangled car along the road, especially because the sounds all vanished from my good ear shortly after it was out of sight.. 

Miles 18-20: I re-joined my training partner around 18, and we chatted about how great I was feeling and how awesomely her miles had gone. While we only ran "together" for four miles today, I never felt alone. I could always see her lights up ahead, or know that, within a mile, we'd be passing each other on our multiple out-and-back route. It was reassuring to know that she was also "out there", pushing hard herself. 

Miles 20-21: Some route/schedule issues enabled me to run these miles solo, after dropping my TP at her car, but before I met up with my husband and kids. I've never felt this good at mile 20 of a marathon. I don't think I'd stopped smiling the entire back half of the run. Seeing that average pace on my watch hovering between 9:19-9:22 told me everything I needed: 

You're going to do this.

Miles 22-25.5: I joined up with my family for the last 4-5. It didn't feel like a race. It felt like just another Sunday Runday at the river, maybe one of my miler method tempo runs, though, where my husband let me go just enough ahead of him to hear the cheers, but not feel pressured to adjust to his pace. I felt so freaking strong at this point, and kept doing the mental math to see how close I could get to breaking 4:10 if I held a 10min pace for the rest of it.  ...and then realized I could go below 4:05 without too much effort.

Mile 25.5-26.2: This was a weird stretch. I run with both my Garmin and Polar watches (due to how they're hooked up with different rewards programs and social networks). My Garmin usually shorts me on distance (compared to both my Polar and my friends' watches when we run the same route together), and it was really important to me that I hit the full distance on both watches... even if they were almost a quarter mile off from each other.
I hit the distance on my Polar easily in 4:03:46, but had to push hard to get in on my Garmin (4:04:49).

That kick, tho

Splits

Reflections

I feel like there's more to say, but it'll have to come at another time. For now, here are the random things in my head:

I'm so proud that I was able to "just go run a marathon" this morning ...and PR by over ten minutes.

I'm a little bummed I didn't try harder from the start, because I totally had a sub-4 in me today. I felt amazing at the end, pushing a 7:00 pace for that last bit. I've never felt better during a marathon.

This Hansons-esque training that my TP's coach has us on is AMAZING. 

I'm really grateful for my family, my training partner, and the ability to still be able to run through this. Running has been such an incredible coping mechanism for me over the past 10+ years, and today was one more time that it really delivered.