Things I Learned From My First Marathon

 

 

It's been a month since my marathon and I have had some time to reflect about it. Mainly, I have been thinking about the things I need to do in order to have an improved overall experience in the Route 66 Marathon. These include the following:

• I need to get faster. I'm working on things with Coach Jim and may even sign up for the Kenyan Way. I'm being told that I may run the entire thing instead of doing intervals. EEK! But I'm looking for 5 hours, 30 minutes goal and 10:30/mile pace. If I get to 10:30, I will be well under that overall goal.
• Stick to how I trained. During my half marathon, I ate a light pasta dinner and had a few things for lunch. But I did just fine and had no problems. I took some advice and had a pasta lunch and salmon for dinner the night before the marathon. The pasta lunch was not great and may have contributed to digestive issues the next day. And I didn't feel like the salmon properly filled my tank if you know what I mean. Also, I ate breakfast two hours before instead of an hour and didn't eat my banana before the race. I was hungry when I started the race.
• I overhydrated myself. I grabbed two water bottles each time I went through a water station. I felt nauseous after awhile. Eventually, I went down to one bottle and lost the nausea. I didn't think this was a thing until I read on Katie Aune's blog about the same issue. I was amazed to find out that someone had the exact same thing as myself.

After an early lunch, we realized that Jessy, the teenage girl in the group, was suffering from some sort of heat exhaustion. She was dizzy and shaky and even threw up. It was quite scary. We realized later that she may actually have been suffering from hyponatremia, when drinking too much water leads to the dilution of sodium in the body. She drank nearly 3 liters of water during the hike in an attempt to avoid dehydration, but without food or electrolytes to go with all that water, it had the reverse effect.

• I need to clean up my eating the day before, because I had some serious bathroom issues starting around mile five or six.
• Starting out at a slower pace for the first few miles to get me warmed up is better than guns blazing out of the start gate. Thankfully, I noticed this early on and corrected myself.
• I need to bring toilet paper with you either for my runny nose or if the port-o-potty's run out of toilet paper.
• I liked the GUs (strawberry kiwi or orange ones only) a great deal better than the chews. The blocks were nice, too. But the energy chews did not work for me at all. Also, I may train with those bonks or whatever they are called.
• I was so glad that Jim was there to take my jacket. Next time, I'm not going to be afraid to leave it behind in the hotel room before heading out for my run.
• Watching a movie and relaxing the day before saved my legs for the marathon.