2024 Indianapolis Monumental Marathon - Putting myself (and a race) together

[u/Siawyn]

Race Information

• Name: Indianapolis Monumental Marathon
• Date: November 9, 2024
• Distance: 26.2 miles
• Location: Indianapolis, IN
• Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/12861398378

Goals

Goal	Description	Completed?
A	3:11	???
B	3:16 ("safe" BQ)	???
D	PR (< 3:41)	Gee I hope so

Training

(I wrote this along the way before the race, so that it wouldn't be influenced by the result. Also I don't write short reports, so skip to the race itself if you want)

This was a deeply personal cycle and it's impossible to write this report without describing the circumstances around it, but need to keep it vague for reasons. When I started this cycle in Mid-August I was really going through some tough times that were self inflicted, which made it even worse. Definitely the lowest I've ever been in my life. I would not recommend throwing yourself completely into running as a coping mechanism, but I huffed some grade A copium and I was very fortunate that I didn't break myself completely. I lost about 10 lbs in extremely rapid fashion (8 of them in just a week) the week before I started this cycle, and ended up dropping from 183 lbs to 169 lbs by the end of August. I managed to pull myself back up to the 172-175 range since then, which is still anywhere from 7-10 lbs less than my typical race weight. I'm 6'4" for reference. The first 3-4 weeks of the cycle was pretty tiring as a result, with lack of sleep, lack of eating properly and just a lot of stress in general. After that I slowly pulled myself together and just kept focusing nearly 100% on running. I did stabilize the diet and sleep finally and from mid-September on at least this facet of my life was stable. I treated the missing 7-10 lbs as a gift. Again, not recommended, but sometimes life throws you curveballs and you just have to roll with it - life isn't always fair & you learn a lot about yourself during those times.

With that said, I had signed up for Indy just before all of this went down. I had run a hilly half marathon in 1:37 in early August, and that was a course PR by 3 minutes - I had run it every year since 2016. My HM PR is 1:32 from 2021, and that year I ran 1:40 in that particular August race so that told me with a good cycle I'd be primed to take a shot at a BQ, which has always been my dream. The revised BQ for me, a 52 M, is 3:20. I figured I needed to be at least at 3:16 to feel safe and that seemed within the realm of possibility with a good cycle.

Backing up a bit with my history, I started running in 2016 when I decided to stop being sedentary behind a desk for 2 decades.I started hardly being able to run a quarter mile without being hopelessly out of breath. Then I made it to a 5k, and then a 5k without stopping. My first HM in 2016 was a 2:10, I ran a full in 4:56 and then whittled that down to 1:39 and 3:41 respectively in 2018. Then I took a break from marathons, focusing on HM and shorter distances until I felt like I could run a BQ. I lowered the HM PR to 1:32 in 2021 and that was my sign. In 2022 I ran Grandma's but I got hurt halfway through my cycle and had to jog in the same time of 3:41. I took another crack that September at BQ.2 in Chicagoland and was on pace halfway through but pulled a muscle in my quad and had to post my only DNF of my entire running career. That one hurt in more ways than one and put me out of commission for a while. 2023 wasn't a great year, but I just very gradually built back up. That August HM race saw me struggle to a 1:53, but in late September I ran the Akron HM in 1:43 and things were finally looking up. Then I caught COVID in October and had to reset everything... again. 2024 saw me do a 5k/10k cycle for an 8k race in June. I had a great cycle for a while but flirted with overtraining and horrible race day conditions had me only post a 38 min 8k. Very disappointing at the time. Took a couple weeks very easy on pace which was sorely needed, had an amazing start to summer, built back up, ran the 1:37 HM and I was clearly on the upswing. I had been around the 50 mpw mark as well. Indy would be marathon number 8 and my 4th state. (OH, IN, IL, MN)

I went with Pfitz 12/55 for the plan, but I ran every day (I have a 320 day running streak as of the posting of this report now) and occasionally I added a mile here or there to the MLRs and LRs. The MLRs is where the sausage is made in Pfitz plans IMHO as you're almost always running them on tired legs. I also did easy doubles usually once a week to add a little more easy mileage. I seemed to be fond of doing these on Monday, or on the evening after a morning workout. I kept the pace on "rest" days as easy as needed, sometimes that meant miles that started with a 10 for pace. All that mattered is that I was moving, and I always felt better afterwards. Ultimately I ran 750 miles for the 12 weeks and from weeks 2 to 10 I averaged 69 mpw. Mileage by week was 52, 72, 72, 76, 64, 66, 75, 69, 64, 65, 50, 23. Did I mention that prior to this I'd only run greater than 70 miles for 3 weeks in my entire running history? See above about throwing yourself completely into running as a coping mechanism, and again, I'm incredibly fortunate I didn't break myself. In fact, shockingly I never had any niggles. I -was- occasionally very weary though. I remember a couple of MLRs where I just wanted to lie down and die afterwards, and one LT workout early on where after I finished the LT part in humid conditions I was just so drained physically/emotionally that I sat on a bench and cried for a minute. The only other bad decision that I made (at least with respect to marathon training!) was volunteering at a soup kitchen and the food bank. These would be 3-4 hour sessions standing on my feet a lot and found that more tiring than running 2+ hours! But from a non-running perspective it was really important to get me by - I needed to stay occupied. Giving is what gives me happiness.

Training breakdown - after that first week I really ramped up the miles but as noted above I tolerated it somehow. Starting training while it's still August in Ohio is always tricky but tolerated that as well. The key is to just be realistic about workout paces and not stress about being slower. A not-so-brief summary of how it went:

August:

First 14 with 8 MP session went great at 7:24 for the MP miles. The first LT session was not with obscenely warm/humid conditions and averaging 7:09 for 4 LT. However I knew that was all weather related so I didn't stress about it one bit.

September:

LRs this month were very solid. One thing I started to do, because it just really helped me to do things over the weekend, was to make some road trips for most my long runs and do other things while there. The LRs this month were in Cleveland (16 at 8:32), Cuyahoga Valley National Park (17 at 7:40, with 10 at MP at 7:20 with the last mile in a comical 6:47 because I felt strong and ripped one), Pittsburgh (19 at 8:19), and Cincinnati (20 at 8:24) The first LT workout this month was all over the place but averaged close to 7:00 for 5 LT. The 2nd one was a shot in the arm averaging 6:55 for 4 LT. By mid month I was really starting to feel the fitness take shape. I ran the hilly Akron HM on Sept 28 in 1:34 for a big course PR on a tropical morning (thanks Hurricane Helene!) and that told me again that my BQ goal was very doable. More importantly, I ran positive and with joy with every step, the first sign that I was pulling myself out of my malaise. The very next day I ran 13 miles easy and I wasn't even that tired, which just reaffirmed how awful the weather was for the race - I had been limited by my lungs, not my legs. The weather most of this month sucked. The last 20 days of Sept were all above normal and frequently humid. I knew it would pay off later though, even if it didn't help me in the moment. I ended up with 310 miles this month, which blew away my old monthly record of 250.

October:

The weather finally broke, and I took off. 7 days after that HM I did the infamous 7 LT workout and absolutely crushed it averaging 6:51 with the last mile at 6:42. Followed it up 2 days later with a 21 mile LR in Columbus at 8:06. The next week I did a 10k TT in 41:58 for a pretty good PR. The next day I did a hilly 17 mile LR in an easy 8:44 in Monaca PA (which is really good the day after a 10k race) but almost had catastrophe strike as I tripped over my own feet while daydreaming and fell going down a hill. Busted up my forearms pretty good, lots of road rash as well, tweaked my left ankle and knee and had a nice cut on my head. However I avoided actually breaking anything and didn't have a concussion so I got incredibly lucky. I wasn't feeling that way while running the 8+ miles back to the car though hurting the whole way with dark thoughts swirling (why do these things always happen when you're at the furthest away point?) Metaphorically this was just me picking myself up off the ground, yet again.

I powered through the next week while very sore with a decent 4x1200 workout (roughly 6:35 pace but it was rainy, windy and only 39 degrees, just an ugly morning & in a dour mood) a 14 mile hilly MLR on that Friday and then a killer 22 mile LR on Sunday in Athens OH at 7:42 pace with a negative split. I honestly was stunned at that one and this is where I was asking if I was overcooking things, or if I really was that fit. Evidence pointed to me actually being that fit though. I wrote in my running journal yet again that I had no idea where I was drawing this strength from, but maybe it's because running was the only thing I had in my life at that moment so I was wholly committed to it. In this case, I really was trying to make the best of a bad situation, but I became more and more positive with each day that dawned. After the 3rd week of October I felt like I was peaking or very close to it. The question would be how broad I could make that peak last, but it was only 3 more weeks to the race so was already close to the taper. A lot of times this month I started to visualize the finish to Indy. Just putting myself into the mindset, knowing I'd have to embrace the grind, be willing to suffer, and how good it would feel coming down the finishing chute realizing my dream at last. I particularly seemed to keep visualizing seeing the mile 23 marker and telling myself only 5k to go, time to hammer it. I had no idea what mile 23 at Indy looked like but I was ready to find out.

Last weekend of October was the final 10k tuneup and I aced that with a 41:30 time and an estimated 5k PR along the way with very even splits. In fact this was my best age graded score & time of 74% / 36:17. The very next day I went back to Pittsburgh and cruised through 17 miles at 8:06. It shocked me just how little fatigue I had in the legs the day after that 10k. October ended up with 290 miles, so 600 miles total between Sept/Oct.

Running continued to be a metaphor for me putting myself back together - I just kept getting stronger and stronger somehow, pulling from some unseen well that somehow never emptied. The gradual confidence that I kept gaining from running was exactly what I needed as I had been just so incredibly down on myself. Then it was the taper and hoo boy, the taper crazies hit big time for the first time ever. I'm a very calm/patient/stoic person but not this time. I just wanted to run ALL THE TIME - not because it would keep me from losing fitness, but because I was just going stir crazy not being out doing it. It had been such a huge part of my life for the prior 10+ weeks, the structure being the lattice that I clung to while pulling myself up off the floor and I had to figure out how to fill the extra time and all the extra energy that was spilling over. The taper ended up being symbolic of me learning to stand on my own 2 feet again. Gotta stand before you can run, right? And I had about 26.2 miles to run still.

The last workout 10 days out was the 3x1 mile one. Despite not really feeling that great for it, did well averaging 6:27/mile for the splits. I set a (very soft) mile PR of 6:25 in there. Time to close the barn door, because it was bursting with hay.

November:

Not much to add here. As alluded to above, the taper crazies raged at first, and this really was the first time in my entire running career that I had them. It's just this running cycle had meant EVERYTHING to me. Time passed at a glacial pace. Race day would never get here. I'd probably trip going up the steps and hurt my knee. Or I'd pull my back getting out of bed. Or I'll catch a cold or worse, COVID again. Ok doomer.

Pre-race

Of course none of that happened, and we made it to the Friday before the race and I made the 4.5 hour drive to Indianapolis and the expo for packet pickup, did my 3.5 mile shakeout feeling light and easy and settled into my hotel for the night. I had entered a tranquil calm, my last long run the weekend before had been 13.1 miles at 7:43/mile while still feeling easy and that was just the final piece of this jigsaw puzzle that I had laid out for myself 3 months ago. The "race prep" 7 with 2 at MP workout felt hard, but it was also nearly 80 degrees in November and windy so I dismissed it. The whole week I just thought of how far I'd come and kept visualizing the race, how easy it would feel for a long time as I was well prepared and reminded myself many a time not to get carried away too early in the race. Being patient and calm is a strength of mine, and I needed to lean into that all the way.

At the very start of this cycle I had penciled in 3:18 as a goal time. I had slowly settled in on low 3:1X for my goal as the cycle went on. Nothing dissuaded me from that on race week. I've been running long enough and had enough data to know that this was a reasonable goal. (my watch suggested 3:29 - thanks for the vote of confidence, Garmin!) A 41:30 10k would suggest 3:11. My HM (adjusted for hills and weather conditions and my prior experience running flat HMs 6 weeks after that hilly one) suggested 3:11 was reasonable. My MP workouts early in the cycle suggested that high 7:1X pace was reasonable. 3:11 would be 7:17 pace. 3 solid to great 20+ LRs and carrying 70 mpw for most the cycle told me that my endurance was more than fine.

All in all I'd target 7:15 on the watch, knowing that the actual pace would probably be 2 sec higher due to GPS. I subscribe pretty religiously to the 10/10/10 rule for the marathon in which the first 10 miles should feel easy, the 2nd 10 should feel moderately easy, and the last 10k is where you do the work. I'd re-evaluate at 10 and 20 miles to determine what I'd do with the pace, but ideally I'd still be cruising at 20 and then could ever so slowly ratchet up the effort. My goal was still somewhat binary (I wanted that BQ more than anything else) so I could afford a bit of a drop off on the second half. I'd be fine if I split 1:36/1:39 for example. I think that really gave me a little bit of comfort headed into the race; I had some wiggle room. I knew I had an outstanding block of training behind me; going all 12 weeks and not missing or compromising on a single run was an incredible feat. If I failed, it wouldn't be because of training. But I wasn't going to fail, and my mood was extremely positive headed into race day. Running sometimes can be half mental, and I was going to ace that part. I reminded myself every time I set a big PR in a race I was always full of quiet confidence on race morning. I thought of how far I had come in 12 weeks. The one time I wasn't mentally strong had cost me so much. It wasn't going to happen again.

I really nailed race week prep. I got 8-9 hours of sleep most nights up until the night before, and I carb loaded pretty well. My sleep schedule has been hilariously off kilter since August and the time change the prior weekend did not help one bit, but I wasn't worried about trying to correct it until after this cycle was over. I crashed around 8 pm, woke up around 2 am, was up a few times, caught some brief winks of sleep between, then was up for good around 4:30 am. Had my usual poptarts & Gatorade for breakfast, took a long hot shower to relax, knocked out the Final Poop(tm), checked out of the hotel and got to where I was parking at 6:30. This ended up being quite early but being in an unfamiliar city meant I'd rather be safe than sorry. So I just chilled in the car for a while, then walked over to the convention center a block away which was open, found a bench I could sit on, and relaxed there watching the minutes tick away agonizingly slowly. Re-tied my shoes and went to the corrals around 7:40 and worked my way up toward the front of corral B. I should have tried to switch to Corral A at the expo but didn't think of it. The 3:15 pacer was at the back of A. Oh well, I figured there'd be plenty of people in the same boat as me and this was a big marathon anyways.

Weather was about ideal as you could ask for - mid 40s at the start with some scattered layered clouds. A beautiful fiery red sunrise greeted the day, and just put me in an even better mood. I looked around the corral. Everyone here had their own personal story, but we were bound by the commonality of it all. Mine was pretty simple. Complete the journey, and get that BQ. I reminded myself how I ran the Akron HM in late Sept - positive and full of joy and how it felt like the dark clouds were finally parting for at least a time. We're going to latch onto that, and just keep the good vibes flowing I promised to myself. This race is a celebration of me and the culmination of a journey unlike any other in my life. I knew I was going to get it. I was 100% positive of it, even if a little voice told me being overconfident is the devil's work. But damnit, I'd earned the right to be confident. It's a fine line between that and being cocky, and I was hopefully staying on the correct side.

Corral A went off at 8, B was to go off at 8:05 and I ditched my throwaway sweater - forgot the sunglasses were on top of my head and they went flying off - oops. Grabbed them off the ground, put them back on, had took my first GU a few mins prior and we walked up and we were off. Finally.

Miles 1-5

I was right in that all of us in the front shot out fairly fast, so I pretty quickly locked into the 7:15 pace that I was shooting for. These miles just passed away with hardly a thought. I'd brought 6 (now 5) gels with me and the only changeup was I had to hold 2 of them in my left hand as all of them in my shorts were too heavy. Whoops. Turns out losing 10 lbs will do that. I started hitting the fluid stations right off the bat, taking water at first. Gel 2 was at mile 4. GPS got very jumpy headed back through the downtown circle, but I just kept the effort even and it smoothed back out. Everything felt free and easy and I just cruised.

Splits: 7:14, 7:14, 7:16, 7:14, 7:13

Miles 6-10

We start heading north out of downtown here. Indy serves Nuun as their sports drink and I hadn't realized that - never had it before. But it tasted fine to me. Gel 3 was taken at mile 9. Keeping with my "running with joy" directive, every time I saw a spectator with an Ohio State shirt on I'd yell "O-H!" and I'd get the "I-O!" back. I'm not even really an Ohio State fan despite being from Ohio, it was just me being cheerful. Headed west on E 38th for a bit, my reverie was broken by the sound of several sirens as an ambulance and fire truck came down the road behind us - fortunately on the other side. Shortly after turning north again on Meridian St for a few miles, a blonde pulled up alongside me to the right. She said she had been just 5 seconds behind me for a long time now and thought she would catch up. We chatted for a bit about goals etc and she was looking to finish under 3:15. Told her she was well on her way for that, as I was aiming for 3:11 and just making sure every mile was under 7:20 at the least. The conversation lasted for a couple of miles, then I gradually pulled away. At mile 10 I took stock of how I was feeling, given the 10/10/10 philosophy I follow. First 10 felt easy, we're good. Lets just keep on cruising.

Splits: 7:16, 7:14, 7:15, 7:16, 7:13

Miles 11-15

I kept hitting most fluid stations, alternating water and Nuun. Started to pick up a few minor rollers here on the course - nothing major, just enough to keep it interesting. I remember seeing in the distance the halfway checkpoint for the marathon and I was surprised - I thought I was coming up on the mile 12 marker, not 13! I'd been idly daydreaming and completely lost track of the miles. Cool, free mile! I rolled through the checkpoint at exactly 1:35:30 per the official race split - I was proud of that one. Just gotta do it again, that's all. Around mile 14 I hit another fluid station for water, and I must have took too big a swig and some of it went down the wrong pipe because suddenly I started coughing and choking on it. Well, that's cool. First time for everything I guess. I slowed up slightly for a few to work that out and got back to pace. It did however set my stomach off slightly and I delayed my next gel for a bit until that settled. Other than that, kept on cruising.

Splits: 7:15, 7:13, 7:14, 7:13, 7:14

Miles 16-20

We'd started to turn back around to the south here and the southeast wind made its presence known - it was fairly steady around 10-13 mph. Also picked up the most notable hills of the course here - it's all relative as Indy is a flat course but this was definitely the hilliest section. Gel 4 was taken at mile 17 after I judged the stomach was fine again. Around mile 19/20 finally had some downhills and that gave some bonus seconds. However, this also was an empty part of the course. When I hit mile 20 - it was time again to take stock. Felt like I was working pretty hard, enough to where picking up the pace I figured was an unwise gamble - better to just stick to the mid 7:1X's and go for the even split, and with the wind it might get tough because I knew it would be a headwind for almost the remainder of the race. I was so proud of my incredibly even splits so far though.

Splits: 7:19, 7:15, 7:17, 7:07, 7:14

Miles 21-23

I knew 21-23 would be the key point of the race going in. If I felt good at 20, I would have the BQ in the bag (barring some awful catastrophe) but the final 10k was where I was going to find out if my top end goal was in play or not. The marathon is long enough to where you make all these plans and there's a million possible ways it could go sideways. The wind was enough to start slowing me up a touch and I finally saw a 7:2X mile for 21, but halfway through 22 I started to feel a side stitch on the right. I was hoping it would go away. Spoiler: It did not. It grew from an annoyance to becoming actively painful. Legs were tired and sore - mostly the quads, but were able to keep on, but I had to slow up in hopes of somehow working the side stitch out. Wasn't happening. The wind started to feel more annoying because of that. It became a delicate balancing act of how fast could I run without the side stitch getting worse. I was willing to suffer a lot, but with 4 miles to go it was a bit too far still. The pavement was a little rough in spots, and spectators were rather uncommon on a fair part of this section as well.

Splits: 7:24, 7:34, 7:54

Miles 24-26

I saw the mile 23 marker and it took me back to my visions in October. I had thought about this for a long time; now the moment was here. I'd visualized having a message of strength and picking it up. The message I got instead: Pain. I heard a female voice beside me saying "Lets go" - it was the blonde. She had caught back up to me, and she was rolling. I half grunted side stitch and she pulled off. I didn't see her again, so she had an amazing race. My right side hurt like hell but my new goal in the moment was just to keep the miles under 8, no matter what. Somewhere around 23.5 you turn south on the long straightaway back to downtown Indy and holy shit, the skyscrapers look impossibly far away. THERE IS NO WAY ITS ONLY 2.5 MILES TO THERE. It looked like 7. I realized I was starting to feel negative for the first time and was like fuck that, so I flipped my sunglasses down and just didn't look that far ahead. I endured, and there was some carnage along the way. One person laid out in a blanket with EMTs attending to them. People cramped up stretching or walking. Here I was still running sub 8 miles and staying steady, even if it hurt badly. The wind was incessantly annoying at this point but as we finally closed in to downtown it lessened a touch. Anytime a negative thought of how it was hard entered my mind, I shoved it away. Nope, not going there. I'd hurt worse before. I'd force a smile and remind myself how far I'd come. Saw another Ohio State person and did the "O-H!" thing again. Catching back up to the crowds helped.

I got to about a half mile to go, where you make a right turn, then a left turn, and then a right turn to the finishing chute. I made one last request. One last request to the unseen well I had pulled from for the last 3 months. Give me whatever you got left, and I'll finish as hard as I can. The answer I got back was: "Go, run!" And somehow, mysteriously, miraculously the side stitch just... vanished, and I took off. My body just felt like it was tingling. Nobody passed me in that last half mile and I blew by people, with mile 26 managing to be a little faster than the prior 3, and then the last 0.36 on the watch being under 7 with the closing kick in the chute being around 5:30 pace. I completely fed off the crowds that were roaring. If dopamine was a PED, I'd have been busted. This was enough to get me just under 3:14 for a 28 min marathon PR. Yeah, I think I'll take that!

Splits: 7:54, 7:54, 7:41, 6:43 pace (last 0.36)

Post-race

I knew immediately when I got that tingling feeling that 2 things were going to happen: I was going to finish incredibly strong, and I was going to cry the second I stopped. Both were true, I veered to the right to an empty section of the rail and just leaned over it and the tears flowed - tears of happiness this time, just all the emotion spilling out, not just from the prior 3 hours and 13 minutes, but from the last 3 months. I was just completely emotionally spent. How I had pulled myself back together and somehow put this cycle together and this race together, and didn't give in. Official time was 3:13:47, which gave me a very nice 6:13 buffer off my BQ time. Age graded that's 72% and the age graded time is 2:50. You figure the splits were 1:35:30/1:38:17 so not really that bad.

u/theintrepidwanderer found me shortly after and we slowly made our way out while chatting for a quite a while - it was nice catching up with you! I had to skip around noon as I still had a 4.5 hour drive back to Akron, and with all the stops I needed on the way home to stretch and eat etc I didn't get home until almost 7. Going down stairs are still fun today but outside of that, I'm quite fine.

Reflections

Interestingly, I never hit the wall. My slowdown was purely because of the side stitch, and once that went away I had so much juice left in the legs still. I'm not sure what caused it. I don't know if the half-choking incident at mile 14 threw everything off, or if it was because I'd never had Nuun before (even though it tasted fine?) that it reacted differently eventually or what. Maybe the wind made it a bit harder. Sometimes it's just one of those things too! I never did take another gel after 17 and no other fluids after 20 - certainly wasn't going to while side stitched. But I had all the strength I needed. I really leaned into the running with joy this race. The execution was nearly perfect - stuck right to the plan with the splits, and if you skip past the side stitch part, I'd never closed feeling so strong in one. Best feeling ever to hammer it home at the end like that.

It took 8 years from absolute scratch with ups and downs along the way, but I can type this out - I'm going to Boston. This, this was my race of a lifetime.

What's next?

I honestly don't know. I had wondered for a bit what I would do after Indy as this was my singular focus, my driving purpose for the last 3 months, but then put those thoughts away in a box. I'll run a Turkey Trot & Christmas 5k and see if I can carry this fitness into my first sub 20 5k - would be cool to get at my age. After that, I just don't know what 2025 will bring. One day at a time has been my mantra and I'll keep on with that for a while. I do know I'll be running Chicago in October though, so perhaps I'll do a shorter distance cycle in the spring to unlock even more speed. I see a path to a sub 3 marathon out there (which is 2:38 age adjusted) but I'll need to stack another cycle or two like this one. I know I can do it though. Nothing will ever be harder than this one, or maybe my strength was just forged out of the circumstances.

Splits

Mile	Time
1	7:14
2	7:14
3	7:16
4	7:14
5	7:13
6	7:16
7	7:14
8	7:15
9	7:16
10	7:13
11	7:15
12	7:13
13	7:14
14	7:13
15	7:14
16	7:19
17	7:15
18	7:17
19	7:07
20	7:14
21	7:24
22	7:34
23	7:54
24	7:54
25	7:54
26	7:41
27	6:43 pace (last 0.36)

Made with a new race report generator created by /u/herumph.

[u/beetsbearsgalactica]

Well done! Congrats on a great race and thanks for sharing your report.

Was looking forward to reading through this one. Didn't know about the personal challenges you were dealing with before/during the build. Life is tough at times and marathon training is hard, so props to you on handling both.

Your splits until your stitch were perfect. Even then, seems like you are well under the needed buffer for BQ and that's a huge success.

Really happy for you that your successful build translated into a successful result! Congrats again!

[u/Siawyn → u/beetsbearsgalactica]

Your splits until your stitch were perfect. Even then, seems like you are well under the needed buffer for BQ and that's a huge success.

Yeah, it's hard to imagine -6:13 not being enough. That would be insane. (effectively -11:13 off the standard before they cut it by 5 mins)

Thanks!

[u/pinkminitriceratops]

Yeah!!! Nice work!!! Good job hanging in there when it got tough at the end. Congrats on the BQ!!!

I see a path to a sub 3 marathon out there

Yesssss, come join team sub-3-or-bust!

[u/Siawyn → u/pinkminitriceratops]

Yesssss, come join team sub-3-or-bust!

Sooo.... 3:07 spring marathon, 3:03 Chicago, 2:59 Boston? I'm in! (scary, though)

[u/pinkminitriceratops → u/Siawyn]

If I’ve learned anything from chasing sub-3, it’s that it can be a long process 😂

[u/StillSlowerThanYou]

Awesome job getting through that hard life stuff and coming out the other side with a mega pr!

[u/Siawyn → u/StillSlowerThanYou]

Thanks!

[u/run_INXS]

Congrats on your big breakout this fall, and surely there is more to follow. Great work and nice job on the report!

[u/Siawyn → u/run_INXS]

Thanks! We'll just keep plugging away. It's good to know that I can handle 70 mpw so I can commit to something larger next year.

[u/daysweregolden]

I really enjoyed reading this, and following your training/race over these past few months. It's the best of reddit/strava when you feel like you've got company in the grind. I could feel that positivity coming on as your block gained momentum. Truly awesome.

I appreciate your perspective on running as a coping mechanism. It might not be the most sustainable solution for everything but when you're backed into a corner it is often the best antidote. I always scare myself with how direct my correlation between mileage and happiness is. We'll just keep kicking that can down the road.

"Running continued to be a metaphor for me putting myself back together - I just kept getting stronger and stronger somehow, pulling from some unseen well that somehow never emptied." -Man this is great. Motivation to keep going....maybe just maybe there's more in the well! If nothing else, we owe it to ourselves to try and find out.

"THERE IS NO WAY ITS ONLY 2.5 MILES TO THERE." -I swear I have this feeling every single time. The brain can't believe that the suffering will end until you get much closer. I sometimes feel like I wait too long to pickup the pace because I can't get past that.

This is really a beautiful story of resilience, thanks for the motivation, massive congratulations on a massive PR!!!! Boston awaits!! My unsolicited advice is to book your hotel before registration goes through, especially if you can find the cancellable ones. The price and scarcity only go up once people know they're in.

Here's my question: Do you think you would have signed up for Indy if the life stress had come before you registered?

[u/Siawyn → u/daysweregolden]

This is what I love about running, I love how it can be a vessel for life, and the shared sense of community. It just adds so much when it's viewed and taken that way.

You ran Indy some time ago right? I don't know if you remember still that last southbound stretch but with it being flat and straight as an arrow just really gave quite the illusion.

I'll definitely be figuring out Boston lodging before then! As for the Indy signup... I don't know. Everything would have been different. I didn't pull the trigger for Indy until I ran that HM on 8/10 and convinced me that I was ready, and I started the cycle on 8/19 so pretty tight window there. I'm glad I didn't have to find out, but running is what was there for me, and it gave me everything I needed, right up until crossing the finish line.

All it does it makes me hungrier for the next one!

[u/daysweregolden → u/Siawyn]

Yeah I ran it a while back. I remember feeling like I was ready to kick down at about 21 miles, and trying to figure out why I was losing the 3:00 pack at 23. The loneliness of that section sticks with me for sure. I rolled a 3:00:30 that day in what was a really unsatisfying PR at the time. It is a great finish line/chute though.

Glad to hear you're walking away more motivated for the next one, it can sometimes feel like a relief to be done and have the opposite effect!

[u/RunningPath]

CONGRATULATIONS!!! I was looking forward to this report and it did not disappoint! I am so happy for you that you got that big BQ.

I'm always amazed that people can write these detailed race reports and remember so much about a race! I feel like I can barely remember running, a lot of the time :p

[u/Siawyn → u/RunningPath]

I'm blessed (or cursed, sometimes) with a great and long memory - but I also jotted just some very brief notes right after the race in my phone that would help me remember. Just as an example I jotted down "blonde" and that would remind to me to write about that part of the race.

This also was probably my most meaningful race ever too so had that going for me.

Thanks!

[u/running317]

Congrats on the great race!