New Jersey = New Personal Best Marathon

The stars have to seriously align in order for a marathon to go off seamlessly. So much can and will go wrong over the course of 26.2 miles, that you have to be prepared for just about anything. Prior to the New Jersey Marathon on Sunday, April 28th, I was not necessarily feeling great about things. I knew I had done everything possible to get me to the point of being able to run another marathon only 56 days after my previous one. I initially suffered through a brutal period of training for about 3.5 weeks post-marathon (Newport News) because I got all eager to jump back into it too soon and I was not really recovered. As I have mentioned in previous posts, my runs were stinking. I was slow and my heart rate was too high and my Garmin was telling me I suck too by saying I was “Unproductive” for pretty much 2 weeks straight. I knew I had to change things up and that’s when I decided to rest more frequently. That worked like a charm and I got back to my old self just in time for this marathon and I was ready to go the distance again. I had signed up for this race last October 8th (6 days prior to my first sub-4 marathon) so I must have said my expected finish time was about 4:15. Therefore I got dumped into corral 5 with the 4:15 pacer. I was not too happy with this because I NOW KNOW that I can run faster and I was so afraid of getting stuck behind people and need to spend my time weaving in and out of runners. (Running pet peeve.) On race day, the traffic getting to the start line also sucked. Pat dropped me off at an intersection and I followed the crowd and walked the rest of the way. The porta potty lines were so long. It was unreal. I thought how I am going to have time to pee before the race? Thankfully NOW I am in corral 5! I literally ran out of the porta potty and to the start line. I snuck in the front of corral 5 so at least I can be the leader of THAT pack! I sent Pat a text saying how this race was going to suck because of so many people. Oh well. Got to deal with it now. I thought at the same time I was sending that text that the ONLY THING that would make it better was a Boston-qualifying finish time. But how was I going to do THAT among the thousands of runners?! I didn’t really know at the time. When it was time for our corral to take off, I started my watch, RaceJoy app and my music and proceeded to run down a little hill and then up a bigger hill to get out of the Monmouth Racetrack parking lot. I listened to my watch tell me my pace was in the 7’s for the first couple of miles. I felt pretty good. I mean I know I was working hard but I also didn’t want people to catch me from behind! Soon enough around mile 3, we easily caught up with runners from corral 4 and that’s when the bobbing and weaving started happening. It was kind of annoying and my pace was a bit slower then, but I had to deal with the masses. I knew overall my pace was similar to the marathon in Newport News so as long as I didn’t have to waste four and a half minutes in the porta potty again, I would be fine. There were so many turns in this race. I knew that from the map, but it was crazy ridiculous and we all know that turns slow you down. Another reason to be cranky!! I couldn’t even fully study the race course because the turns were too numerous to count. I simply had to follow the crowd and attempt to run the tangents as best I could. It was near impossible. During this race, I felt like I had to push and push hard if I wanted a BQ time. I remember feeling like I was willing myself to that damn finish line. I crossed the half marathon point at 1:51:02 which is my personal best recorded time within a marathon. I was happy with that and I was doing the math saying to myself, “Well, if you keep this pace, you can finish the marathon in 3:42.” Yes, but what are the chances of that actually happening?!? I have never run a negative split race. It’s so hard to do. You start out like a freaking maniac in the beginning and you can never capture that same kind of equivalent power at the end of a marathon. I simply had to stay the course and try to run as consistent as possible. I usually am a consistent runner if I get into a groove. I love having my watch tell me my current pace every 3 minutes. It’s frequently enough that I can make an adjustment within the mile if I need to do so. I enjoyed the course whenever I actually looked around and saw the big beautiful homes on the Jersey shore. But I had such a purpose about me this time. There was no time to really look around and ponder life. Every ounce of energy had to be on propelling me towards the finish line. Once we hit the straightaway on Ocean Avenue, we started seeing the super-fast marathoners on the other side of the road. You know, the 2:30 marathoners. I marvel at them. But they look just as tired. There were still some turns on this portion of the course, but it wasn’t so bad. As we got closer to Asbury Park Convention Center (where the expo was), I knew we were closing in on mile 17 and that’s when all the new twists and turns popped back up. I