View Workout (Brandon Carreno)

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Cleveland Marathon

May 20, 2018 (Morning)

Exercise Type: Run

Weather: ~55 degrees, Rainy to Nice

Comments:
After 5 months of training, race day came along. It wasn't the race I wanted, but it's the one I had.

Woke up bright and early to down some coffee, bagel, and a whole bunch of water. I had a bad feeling about things right after my alarm went off, specifically, in my throat. Sore throat the morning before a big race wasn't great timing, since that's usually one of my indicators of getting sick. Otherwise, I got through my routine, til meeting up with Tony and Benny D, and jamming into downtown.

Waited on the longest bathroom line ever (people are too damn polite), dropped gear off, and waited in the rain that wasn't supposed to be there. But, at least I got to say hi to C Kells, chat strategy real quick with Ben, before we charged towards the giant LeBron poster.

The first few miles went pretty well, kinda rainy and slippy, but Ben and I weren't going so fast it would be a problem. I think we lost contact with Chris after about 2 minutes. Hovered around 6:50 pace for the first 6 miles, when we smacked straight into the steepest hill I've seen in my life. In fairness, Tony warned us about it, but I didn't realize how real it was gonna be. But, we pushed through, and got back on pace. Keeping on the water game, and getting my first gel in, no problems. Next few miles were going fine, but my stomach was getting more and more grumpy. Eventually I realized that letting it continue would have torpedoed my pace in the next mile or two, so in mile 11 I had to peel off, leaving Ben hanging solo, and hit a porta-john. I think I set a PR in there, like 45 seconds from squat to sprint? Either way, a guy at the water stop asked if I'd washed my hands, and of course I said yes (I lied). But I could still see Ben less than 200 meters away, so I thought I could just pick it up a little pace-wise for the next couple miles, and I'd be able to pick him up.

Spoiler alert, I didn't.

Ended up in No-Man's land for a bit there, and some of the bits of asphalt sprayed up from splashing through puddles got between my sock and my achilles. I tried cleaning it out some, but there was all kinds of blood down there, so I just hiked up my sock some, and that stopped most of the pain. From there, I hit the Half-Marathon mark. Something like 1:31:10. That was a bummer. I was hoping to be at least a minute, minute and a half faster than that. I tried to keep that out of my mind, but there's only so much you can distract yourself with in a freakin' marathon.
Kept moving along, but my pacing started to weaken, falling above 7 minute pace by mile 16. That kept happening until mile 18 when cramping started to catch up with me. I suppose I didn't get enough salts/electrolytes over the past day or two. And like a chump I was only drinking water, until this point. To my credit, I did start getting Powerade in, but the damage was already done. The sad walk-jog cycle had begun. Plus my left knee started hurting for no reason. Looking back, I'm wondering if that was psychological, but there's no way to tell now.

Around mile 19 the 3:05 group caught up with me, and I tried to rally a bit, and did run with them for like 2 minutes, but my legs crapped out on me. Stupid cramps. From there, it was just pushing all the way to Edgewater beach, trading places with a few other guys who were going through the same struggles I was.

Although around mile 20 I did see a family holding a big banner cheering on some person. One person on one end of the banner, and another on the other side. They seemed so excited, but then their big golden retriever galumphed on top of the middle of the banner, pulling it out of their hands. What a happy doggo. Pretty sure that's the only reason there's any pictures of me smiling during the race.

Eventually we hit the exit off of Rt 20, and holy balls that was an aggressive slope. That was a walk again. Nice neighborhood though, which was motivating in its own right. Then I was working up the hill to Detroit avenue, when I saw Kristen! I didn't expect to see anyone I knew at that point, so I tagged along with her until reaching the top of the hill, where I died again about a minute later.

That just left the final push up the most stupidly huge bridge before getting into Downtown. The strugglebus would just not let me off. But through more pain, I was eventually able to hobble my way to the finish line, where the snacks and my parents were waiting for me.

Ended up with a final time of 3:15:29. Granted, it's a PR, but it's the least satisfying PR I can remember having. I know I was in better fitness than that. While a true BQ would have been ambitious (though it was my goal), I was expecting even a meh day would put me somewhere in the 3:06 neighborhood. But it's those damn leg cramps that keep holding me back. I want to believe that it's just race day electrolytes/nutrition, but that feels like too easy a target to blame. Really though, if nothing else, I was just glad to be out here. I got to run with an old teammate for a good chunk of the race, and got to hang out with CWRU peeps for the first time in ages.

And that's probably what actually matters.