2015 St. Jude’s Memphis
Marathon (3:04:48)
I just got back from Memphis, Tennessee where I completed my
last race of 2015, the St. Jude’s Memphis Marathon! As you may know this was not a planned race in
my schedule, rather I made the decision a few weeks ago to sign up and roll the
dice after a somewhat disappointing finish at the Chicago Marathon in October. As it
turned out the decision was a good one and even though I went into this race
fairly unprepared, it resulted in my second fastest marathon to date and another great learning experience but let’s start at the
beginning…
The St. Jude’s Memphis Marathon was held on Saturday,
December 5th in downtown Memphis.
I hit the road on Friday morning around 6am with Jamie, the kids and the
new puppy for the 12 hour drive to the Cook Convention center where I had to pick
up my packet by expo closing time of 8pm.
It was a fairly uneventful trip
down and we were able to get to Memphis around 6pm; after picking up my
packet we drove about an hour outside of Memphis where we stayed the night at
my in-laws house in Oakland. By the time we got to my in-laws I only had time
for a quick meal and hit the sack. It’s
worth mentioning my entire diet the day before the marathon consisted of fast
food which is in no way ideal and I definitely paid for it a bit the next day.
Marathon morning I slept in and missed my standard pre-race
meal I eat around 3:30am, also forgot to eat breakfast so I hit a gas station
for a quick banana on the way into town.
At this point I was starting to get nervous. My lack of good pre-race nutrition and meal planning
already had my stomach in a knot and the feeling was compounded by the thought
that I really had put in one good week of training in the weeks following
the Chicago Marathon. I sunk into the backseat of the car feeling
the impending doom of the inevitable “Chicago 2.0” I feared was ahead. Right then I received a message from my
buddy Shannon wishing me luck and added the phrase “Run it for those that may never
get to run again”... boy I can’t tell you how much I needed that to really put
things in perspective, Shannon has a great way of snapping me back to reality
when I’m feeling sorry for myself hahaha.
Here I am worrying about everything that could go horribly wrong in this
race when I should be focusing on the simple fact I get to run for over 3 hours
for a great cause and man I love to run!
Once at the race my luck streak continued as minutes before
race start I finally got through the 20 minute wait for the Porta-Potty only to
find there was no T.P. left… I’ll spare you the details but after some quick
witted improvising I managed to finished up and got into my corral just in time
for the race announcements. The Memphis
mayor gave a nice speech and they announced the total amount donated to the St.
Jude’s hospital from marathon proceeds topped 8.2 million dollars this year! They flashed some videos on the big screen of some of the patients and it was
another eye opening moment where my “race day struggles” just didn’t seem to
matter in the grand scheme of things… before I knew it the gun went off and I
was on my way!
“Remember Chicago!” I screamed at myself as I once again
jumped out the gate like Thomas chasing a sub sandwich. Pacing and smart racing was going to be key
if I wanted to finish this race, let alone get a decent time. I forced myself to take the first mile out
about 40 seconds slower than my first mile at Chicago and it still didn’t feel
great, it’s hard to describe other than I just didn’t feel like racing for some
reason. I tried to push the negative
thoughts from my mind but the first 6 miles went by horribly slow; luckily on mile 7 we ran through the St. Jude’s
campus and I got to high five some patients that were cheering on the race and
that really lifted my spirits. The next
couple miles went pretty well until I started getting a bad stomach ache about
mile 10. I have no doubt the McDonalds,
Wendy’s combination I ate the night before the race was reminding me how
important of a role nutrition plays in marathon racing. A few minutes late I had nearly convinced
myself to drop down to the half marathon before the split at mile 11. However I then reflected on what Shannon said
that morning about those that may never
run again and I thought of all the kids I ran by on the hospital campus who’s
problems were way bigger than a self-induced garbage food stomach ache… I kept on at the split with the full marathon
group and told myself if I was going to continue I was going to do it right and enjoy the race...
Now considering how rough the first part of the race was, when I
made that decision to keep on going at mile 11 a switch flipped in my head and
it’s like someone finally turned on the lights! My stomach ache faded out of mind along with
the burden I had felt of the many miles ahead.
I was now running in the moment, enjoying each step and feeling a
powerful surge of energy pushing me ahead.
I turned my watch to heart rate and would not look at my pace or time
again for the remaining 15 miles of the race, time really didn’t matter anymore
as I was just having a good time doing what I loved most. Miles now started FLYING by, before I knew it
I was past the 25K mark, then mile 16 and 17.
At this point I overheard a runner ahead of me state the next two miles
were the hardest of the course gaining about 250 feet over a short span... I
smiled to myself as I almost made a comment about being from Dubuque but I
figured they would have never heard of our crazy hilly Iowa town so I just
surged past in silence while the guy commented, “better pace yourself”… I again
cracked a smile as ironically, for maybe the first time, I was!! J
I kept on trucking and as the race closed in on the final mile I turned the corner
and had to do a double take as I spotted the 3:05 pacer only a couple hundred
feet ahead. Up to this point I was
thinking I was on track to hit somewhere around a 3:08 which I was perfectly
fine with but I forgot to take into account the start delay for the elite
corral… a very pleasant surprise to say the least! Luckily since I had been pacing myself well I
had plenty of gas in the tank so the last half mile I turned up the heat and
caught the pacers to finish just under my BQ time!
The finish was inside the downtown baseball
stadium and it was pretty cool running onto the field to finish around 2nd
base, although climbing the steps to leave proved to be a bit of a challenge. I got a finish photo quick with one of the
many Elvis impersonators and headed on my jolly way with a big smile on my face
and a great feeling of accomplishment I hadn’t had in a while! It was a roller
coaster of a race which is reminiscent of my 2015 in general but it really was
the perfect last chapter to this year’s story. It really has been a heck of a year and I'm grateful for all the races both good and bad that continue to make me a stronger and happier runner.... and as this year comes to a close I am just itching to start writing the first chapter of what is sure to be an exciting 2016!!
Happy Running!! - Cory
At a boy Cory! Love the blog! I'm gonna talk about this story at work tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteThanks dude!!!
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