Grandma's Marathon DNF

My second attempt at the Olympic Trials Standard, <2:37.

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I had the best training block, consistently hitting the most 90 mile weeks I’ve ever hit and nailing many challenging workouts. While I did back off slightly, with the drop in ferritin and a bit of life stress/fatigue, I still managed to complete more speed sessions and longer workouts than I ever had in a marathon training block. I was ready to run a smart, fast race in Duluth!

All seemed well on my shake out the day before and some strides; taking in the beautiful sunny day in Duluth--admiring the aerial bridge.

Race day came around and I was a bit nervous, but the short mile warm-up jog and strides with my teammate Sydney felt good.

The race plan was to go through halfway in 1:18:30 (5:59 mile pace) so I tried to stay between 5:55 and 6:05 and largely turn the brain off to how I was feeling to conserve energy. I went through halfway in 1:18:45, and checked in with how I was feeling. I was not feeling the best, at all. It felt the same or harder than 1:17 flat felt at Napa Valley. I told myself I was probably just a bit lethargic because the pace was so much slower than I went out last marathon. I focused on picking it up, that it didn’t matter how I felt I knew I had put in the work and I knew I could run under 2:37. I was on the portion of the course I knew, where I’d run an amazing half just the year before, winning the race in a 1:14, a 2 minute PB, a reflection which gave me confidence to keep going. Yet, despite my best efforts to convince my legs they could do it they would not pick up the pace. They felt super heavy. It also felt hotter than it should despite several factors. Despite it being only 50. Despite that fact my recent training had been in FL where it was mid to high 70's and much more humid. Despite the fact that my hydration was going great. I was getting my bottles of Maurten and Gatorade endurance (alternating aid stops) and drinking as much as I could from them, not rushing to chug them but carrying them a ways. This was the first time I'd had bottles at a marathon, and I knew it should only aid my performance.

Despite all of these "facts", at this point many alarm bells were going off because something seemed dreadfully wrong with body at this effort. An effort which based on my preparation and fueling shouldn't be near this difficult. I knew it was a bad day and wasn’t so much thinking it had to be a certain ailment, as I just knew either it was too much to do a marathon 15 weeks after my last or I was sick, and it unfortunately took this hard of an effort to bring this realization about. Later, I realized I probably had a low-grade fever during the race.

I still tried to push these thoughts aside and focus on the present. I told myself it was just a rough spot, and I could still get the time. I tried so hard to dig deeper but my quads were beginning to burn and I was so frustrated I couldn't go faster. I told myself I would just keep going and maybe somehow I’d get the time, some downhill or my watch being off. Maybe 5:59 pace was possible despite all the 6:00-6:05’s I was seeing.

Then I started to slow, 6:10-15. I was done. I didn’t want to finish in 2:40. I had just run a 2:38 off of shitty pacing. My body wasn’t cooperating and it wasn’t worth putting myself through the pain of the last 8 miles just to fall short of my A goal.

I tried to drop earlier but somehow the next tent wasn’t until the top of the lemon drop hill so I plodded up the hill, running 22 miles. What a stupid distance to run at like 6:02-4 pace. This was a hard training run pace for me in this ideal weather. If only I could have closed in 5:45s; but I knew I would be hitting 6:20s at best.

The light of the whole experience was meeting an elite female runner in a very similar predicament. Despite her PB being minutes faster than mine, Hiruni also said she dropped because she didn’t want to see 2:40s on the clock. We understood each other completely. Frustrated at our bodies inability to cooperate after such strong training cycles and knowing we could run so much faster. She later said she didn’t feel like finishing in 2:40s did her training justice, a sentiment I also share.

I was concerned about myself because first I didn’t know how deep of a hole I had dug myself into and therefore how long it would take to dig myself out of it. Despite being such a heart-wrenching decision to make, the first step in digging myself out of the hole was not completing the race.

On the flipside, my second concern was my decision to drop out, because “I didn’t feel it was worth it to finish.” Had I become so narrow minded, so obsessed with running the OTQ/<2:37 that nothing slower was good enough? I was not only concerned with my physical health, but my mental health.

I went to urgent care, my primary doctor, and tested for Covid, strep, and mono. The rapid Covid tests and strep and mono came back negative, but the Covid antibody test came back positive, meaning I had Covid recently. At the time, in addition to my fatigue my throat hurt and I had chills, so my PCP said I must have caught another virus around the time of the marathon race.

Looking back, it seems while rising FL temperatures and personal stress were in part to blame for my paces in workouts slowing and my perceived effort increasing, I also had Covid.

The physical health aspect had been figured out and taking a step back from training should largely improve how I felt, with time.

Despite how tired I was feeling, and how sad about the DNF, I was determined to explore my thoughts and feelings surrounding the race. This has been quite a process, where taking a step back physically and distancing myself from the pressure of marathon training to hit long workouts at certain paces has helped. 

While I accept the decision I made, I'm unsure whether I'll make the decision to drop out so close to a marathon finish line again. To take the pressure off my next race I'm going to keep in mind more goals like doing my best, finishing, placing in the top XX, and running even several minutes off my PB.

I love running and it's been fun to push my body towards faster times! I never thought I'd be an elite at large races, and it's been fun to met so many incredible elite runners. I look forward to continuing to enjoy running and racing despite this unsatisfactory result.