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Brando makes silly decisions

April 30, 2017 (Morning)

Exercise Type: Run

Weather: ~55 degrees, Nice

Comments:
Like run marathons. For real, this is such a silly distance. Anyway, I ran the NJ Marathon. Short version, super mediocre, like even more so than last time. But I was smarter!

Now for the real meat of it. Woke up nice and early, got a quick de-grossening shower, had a bagel, some pita, some coffee, and hopped in the van for a little drive to the shore. I was super fortunate to get to arrive early enough that I got in the bathroom literally 3 seconds before the line got stupid long. Seriously, I walked into it, waited for a stall to open, then like 40 dudes all lined up behind me. Good timing there. Then I sat in the van for a while until I got bored, and headed over to the starting line. But I wanted to get another last second dump, and waited on the longest last minute line of all time. Fortunately I made it to the line with about 2 minutes to spare, but that was really worrisome.

I was supposed to go with Corral 2, but I'm stupid, and was standing with the wrong people. So I left with corral 3. Which was actually somewhat intentional, since the 3:20 pacers were right there, and I wanted to be nice and controlled in the first mile. So I followed them for the first mile or two, then once I warmed up some, I started moving up on people. The next 12 miles went by pretty quick, and darn well. Got water at every stop I could, and got my first Honey Stinger (with a perfect transition) at mile 8 or 9. Hit the half mark right around 1:35. Which was fantastic. In retrospect I should have only signed up for that distance, but more on that later.

Right after that point, there was a little loop around a pond, but there was a little up and down. That made me realize that this was gonna be a long second half. But I kept trucking, chatted a bit with some people nearby, and tucked in until I saw the turnaround. Which took for-fucking ever. My god, I thought we were close when we saw the leader pass us going the other way. But that wasn't even close. Got another gel in around mile 17, quite successfully. But then right around the time mile 20 rolled around, with the pace mat, I turned to the guy next to me and said "This'll probably be it". And turned out to be darn accurate. I kept trudging til around mile 21, and got my last gel in. Or at least tried to. I mucked up taking that one in, and started coughing/choking. I tried to clear it up with some water at the nearby stop, but that just made it worse. Mostly because it started to come out of my nose. Gross shizz, yo. Had to stop entirely, and cough it out some. But that was bad, since I almost couldn't breathe for a few seconds either. Which was scary. Eventually I was able to start rolling again, but that's when my legs blew up.

Everything from my waist up felt functional, other than the lingering cough, but my legs just died. No actual reason that I can tell, other than maybe just needing more mileage beforehand. But they just refused to keep working normally. And this torpedoed my time. Again. So I had to walk a good chunk of those last 5ish miles. I tried to regulate it, mixing in some light jogging, but that just didn't happen super well. My left knee started hurting, then my right foot. After an incredible amount of physical, mental, and emotional torment I hauled my sorry butt across the line to an even more mediocre finish than I did at Cuyahoga Valley a year and a half ago. Bleh.

I mean, overall it was fun, I got to represent the shop (thanks for the loaner singlet folks), and I got to try and run the race more intelligently than last time. I just couldn't finish well. So I think I'm probably good with this stupidly long distance stuff for a while. Honestly, I probably could have had a real dirty Half if I wasn't trying to do this for its own sake. Oh well. I'll enjoy my next couple of weeks off, and just get ready for the reset, and start figuring out what I'll do next. Most likely try to not gain weight, then maybe just get fast. I hear Garden State Track Club's always looking for people.