Cape Cod Marathon #5

Marathon #5. I chose Cape Cod for a number of reasons. My number one being my love for the Cape. I also chose this because it was within driving distance and would be relatively inexpensive and not a big race.   The race is located in Falmouth Mass. and is approximately about 1200 runners. It is a very small town race with a homey feeling. It has beautiful views of the shoreline including Woods Hole and Nobska Lighthouse. The course is about 500 feet of elevation gain with rolling hills throughout the course. It very much reminded me of the HMF half marathon course in Mystic.       My training block started out in end of June. I made the decision to train at home this year to cut back on miles on my car and allow myself to sleep in a little bit, thinking I’d relieve myself from some mental stress. I quickly became very lonely though. Training for a marathon by yourself is not for the weak. I struggled with a lot of burn out and found myself not excited for any of my upcoming races. I made the decision to run with the Fleet Feet training group on their last long run and quickly found myself getting excited again.   The week leading up to race weekend, I should have known better to take it easy. Instead I overbooked myself at work. I worked multiple 11 hour days on my feet in a row, working until 9pm at night. It also forced me to push my workouts and runs closer to the end of the week and skip meals throughout the day. Naturally, I found myself run down and feeling the start of cold coming on Thursday night. All day Friday I tried to hydrate, eat and change my vibe to shake this bug off.   Saturday morning we headed out early to the Cape to hit the expo and bib pick up first thing. The entire drive I was experiencing body aches (the kind that makes your hair hurt) and could not get warm. Pete had his window open the whole drive because I was sweating him out so bad with the heat cranked. At this point I was super nervous I wasn’t going to be able to run.   The expo was located in the middle school gym (super cute, small town ish!) and easy to park and walk to. I hesitated buying any apparel because I didn’t want to jinx finishing the race. I got my bib and we headed out for a drive. Falmouth is so small that we basically drove the entire course just from sightseeing! For dinner, we grabbed a pizza from a local pizza place. We brought it back to our room and I was super excited to carb load without guilt only to find our pizza tasted like someone dumped an entire salt shaker on it. I ate a few slices just to make sure I had some carbohydrate stores and went to bed at 7pm.   The best part about this race? It starts at 8am and is such a small town, you can sleep in and literally get there 30 min prior and make the porta potty and bag check with time to spare.   Race Day: I set my alarm for 5am, laid in bed until 5:30 and finally got up and got ready. We left our hotel at 6:40, grabbed some Starbucks and headed to drop off. The entire weekend was calling for a coastal storm of a N’oreaster. The Weather Channel predicted 35mph winds and heavy rain. Luckily I packed plenty of clothes (a whole suitcase) for all weather conditions.   Race morning, I checked my weather app and luckily saw that the rain was going to hold off till about 10:30. Great, I would be more than halfway done at that point and I could deal with the wind.   As we approached the drop off area, I sat in the car with Pete and we just watched the wind blowing everything around. Pete turned and said “I really don’t like that you’re gonna be out running in this.” Oh well, I paid for it. I looked around and saw everyone else enduring it. Around 7:20, after keeping warm in the car I said goodbye and headed out to the porta potty line. Luckily, it moved super quick and I was waiting to enter the corral by 7:40. Thank god I threw an emergency blanket in my bag check because I wrapped myself up until about 5 min before start and kept warm.   There were no pace leaders in this race and amateur me, I forgot to print a pace band (they had none at the expo) I was left to pace this with just my watch. Ok I can do that. Cue the race start, the first mile was spent trying to get around other runners until it spaced out to reach my pace.   Now after all my years visiting the Cape and running through it, contrary to belief – the Cape is not flat like many people think. It’s filled with many rolling hills. I was very shocked by the amount of hills this course actually had. I initially started out too fast. I wanted to keep a pace of 8:50 but found myself at an 8:30 pace. I knew I was moving too fast but my body wasn’t allowing myself to slow down. Around mile 3, both of my hip flexors started hurting. A pain I had not experienced my entire training. I started lining up the 26 miles with the 26 letters of the alphabet and thinking of words for each letter and mile to keep my mind occupied. After that got old (about letter E) I turned my headphones on and zoned out.   Mile 13 was when it really hit me how this race was not going how I wanted it to. So many times I honestly thought I was going to DNF, especially with the head winds and not feeling well. I even said to Pete before he dropped me off I wasn’t sure I would make it. He told me, “Don’t worry, just call me and I’ll find you.” Then I started thinking of him getting frustrated trying to find my location 13 miles out.   By mile 17, I was really just hoping I could quit and I gave up all hopes of reaching my PR of 3:55. I started walking the first minute of every mile at that point just to ease the pain on my hip flexors. My watch was 1/10 of a mile off each mile marker and my mind was so confused on my splits.  I started tearing up at one point because I felt so failed by my training and my body. I was expecting a 4:30 finish.   Finally at mile marker 23 I looked at my watch and saw that I was at 3:25. The rain was starting at this point but I knew if I just pushed myself I could still make my PR. I ended up finding a group of runners at a pace I could push till the end and ran with them until about mile 25.5 and then dropped them. At that point my ego was so much stronger than my willingness to quit and I hit the gas. Usually, I like to come across the finish with a big smile but I was so over this race I didn’t even care at that point. Last minute, I threw the horns up 🤘🏼       I got my PR with 29 seconds to spare! The finish area was super easy to navigate and I found Pete within 5 minutes. At this point the rain was heavy and I was so over it, I grabbed my gear check and we headed back to the hotel. None of the restaurants in Falmouth were doing it for me so we headed an hour to the outer Cape to have lunch at my favorite place in Orleans. We ate at the Lost Dog Pub and hit up the Ice Cream Cafe and I got to enjoy my favorite part of the Cape for a brief moment.   All said and done, unless they create a marathon going from Orleans to Ptown, I think I’ll stick to running on vacation! I’m happy with my PR and so grateful that my body allows me to do this sport. I’m so grateful to be able to consistently chase goals and do hard things! Next up, Marine Corps Marathon.   203