My Albatross

The start of the Philadelphia Marathon was cold and dark.  I was lucky that I met up with Marie right at 6:15, like we had planned, but we weren’t able to catch with anybody else.  I ran with Marie for the first 4 miles, which was so great, since it would be our last run together (she’s moving to Philadelphia to be closer to her family), and started to slowly pull away until mile 15 when I didn’t get the calories I was expecting.  I hit the wall at mile 17, right when she pulled up to me and passed me.

If there’s one thing I can say, is that I was emotionally invested this time around, and when things didn’t go according to plan I was a wreck.  I was crying by mile 21 and had resigned myself to just finishing in cold.

The course was really pretty in the late fall.  If I was running, the sun made it warm enough, and the sites that we passed were really cool.  I told Brian that I think I’m going to have to do it again because I don’t want to associate it with a bad performance.

Now comes recovery.  And planning for my next one.  I have a few in mind, but this tiny one out in Washington might be the one.  It’s called the Yakima River Canyon Marathon and a couple hours outside Seattle.  I do wonder if Brian would still give me the Boston exemption number, but even more, if I want it after such a poor performance in Philly.

Bottled up

The Philadelphia Marathon is in 4 days now and I’m wavering between excitement and anxiety. More so the latter but I try to hide it. I think my happy goal – as opposed to my excellent goal – is a 3:25. But that’s not really why I am getting anxious. Brian thinks that I have talent (and he tells me, drunkenly, that he doesn’t tell everybody that), enough to run a 3:10 or even a sub 3 hour marathon someday, but the first step to getting there is learning to invest myself emotionally and mentally. That’s the hard part for me with this whole running business.