It looks like a spring marathon finish is not in the cards for me this year. Is it strange that I'm actually kind of ok with it? I ended up dropping out of the Wisconsin Marathon at the half when it because pretty clear the heat was turning my race into a shitshow. If I had trained all winter to "just finish" the race I would have stuck it but with time goals being my end game I wasn't really excited about wrecking my body walk/jogging another 13.1 miles in the heat just to say "I did it." It felt better to just chalk it up to bad luck and build on my current training for a fall marathon instead.
So that makes not one, but two DNFs for me this spring. After training harder than I've probably ever trained before in my life! 800+ miles total these past 4 months... and a big goose egg.
After I dropped out of the Spring Chance to BQ race two weeks ago I was baffled as to why I felt so bad. It turns out by Monday I was sick. The cold I had been battling during my taper came roaring back to life and I dragged my butt to urgent care to get some antibiotics. Luckily everything cleared up in a few days (mostly just gunk clogging my throat/lungs) but the damage had been done. I felt like all my training went up in a puff of smoke and was so disappointed that I "wasted" perfect 40 degree conditions at the Spring Chance race that I decided to sign up for Wisconsin Marathon to hopefully still capitalize on my fitness.
And we all know how that went! It was just so, so. brutally hot that morning for a marathon. Sometimes the odds are just not in your favor. I keep telling myself that of all the things in the world to struggle with, I'm very lucky that this is my personal struggle. I'm very conscious of the fact that it's a gift for me to be able to do the things I do. I also want to make sure that I keep writing about and sharing the bad races I have because it's important to not just talk about the times you do amazing. It's all part of the process and if I only shout it out when I have successes then that just seems disingenuous, right?
I've been fortunate to qualify for Boston three years in a row now, but unfortunately unlucky to not get into the race before it filled since my qualifying times have all been right on the bubble. I may have bit the big one this time around but just because this training cycle was a bust doesn't mean I won't continue to improve. So my plan is to build off of what I've done for the past 4 months and bust my bottom for a race in September. The good news is that I still love training hard. It's what makes me excited about each day when I wake up in the morning. I'll just need to live in a bubble during those final weeks so I don't come down with a stinking respiratory infection again.
18 weeks until the next one! Let's get started.
