CIM (California International Marathon) – Race Recap 2022

It was another magical day at CIM this year.

I truly did not know if I could have two banner years in a row. Too often it feels like if you have a stand-out marathon, you’re bound to have a bust the next time, but I did everything I could to set myself up for an amazing race, and it paid off.

Now let’s be clear, there is not a lot of glamor to the daily training runs. My family sacrificed a lot of their time for me to do a 60-90 minute run every day, sometimes two runs in one day, long runs of 3 hours or more on the weekend. Plus the strength sessions, the extra time needed to get ready to run, all the extra food consumed, and the list goes on.

Yet, somehow I fall in love with the process more each time and it provides a lot of normalcy and purpose in my life. This summer/fall was an especially hard time for me with our move from Alaska to Minnesota, but luckily this training cycle helped distract me and gave me something to look forward to in my life.

I wanted to replicate my CIM experience from last year since it was so ideal and went so well. Last year Craig, Cullen, and Bjorn traveled with me, which was fun and special. This year, my sister, Kristy, and I traveled together and went by ourselves, which was also special for some sister/girl time. We got into Sacramento on Thursday, which gave us two full days to relax before the race. Thursday afternoon we got settled into our hotel room and then walked to the grocery store to get loaded up on our carbs for the weekend. (We both did a 3-day carb load, which I will blog about separately, but you can read last year’s carb load blog post here.) That night we had the lights out by 8:30 p.m. since we had been up since 4 a.m. to catch our flight.

Friday morning I did a 5 mile easy run, which felt really good and my legs already felt like they had an extra pep in their step. We took a nap that afternoon and then later on we went to the expo, got our bibs, and took photos. The rest of the day was spent lounging in bed, eating a lot of carbs, and just enjoying our time together.

Saturday I did a 2.5 mile shake-out run at 7:00 a.m. I tried to start all of my runs at the time of the race during the week leading up to the race, so that my body was used to running at that time and mostly so my body could regulate it’s bathroom situation. After that, I went to the Rabbit shake-out run but unfortunately did not score a free piece of rabbit apparel this year. Around the noon hour, my parents and aunt (who had flown in the night before) came to pick up Kristy and I to go out for lunch.

The rest of the day was much of the same as Friday afternoon/evening: lounging in bed, eating carbs upon carbs, watching TV, doing some computer work, and prepping our things for the next day. That evening I did an ice bath, which at this point is just a superstition as I’m not sure how much of a difference it actually makes.

I actually slept okay Saturday night. (Honestly, I wasn’t as nervous as last year.) We had the lights out before 9:00 p.m., and I think it took me 30-45 minutes to fall asleep. I did wake up a few times but fell right back to sleep each time. My alarm was set for 3:45 a.m., so I think I got about 6 hours of sleep, which beats my standard 4 hours that I usually get the night before a race.

Kristy and I got up at 3:45 a.m., got ready, and I started fueling for the race. We left our hotel room at 4:45 a.m. to make the less than 10 minute walk to the buses. (Truth be told, I had never worn my outfit prior to this morning. I literally took the tags off my sports bra and shorts that morning as I was getting ready. Ha! In my defense, I had wore the shorts in a different color and bigger size, and I have worn that make and model of shorts bra before. Luckily everything worked out, and my outfit was perfect for the day.) When we got to the capitol where we would be catching the buses, there was a huge line wrapped all the way around the capitol grounds of people waiting to catch the bus. After standing in one spot for a good 20 minutes, I knew that was a bad sign. We finally boarded a bus around 5:40 a.m., rode the bus for a little less than an hour, and finally got to the start around 6:30 a.m for a race start of 7:00 a.m. It was less time than I would have liked, but it was still enough for me to use the bathroom and do a very short warm-up. Kristy trained with a virtual group of runners who were all trying to run a sub-3 hour marathon at CIM, so she went to find her group as soon as she got to the start, but luckily we were able to find each other in the start corral again.

Fueling before the race:
4:00 a.m. banana
5:00 a.m. bagel
6:00 a.m. half of a Gu waffle and 2 scoops of UCAN mixed with water
7:00 a.m. Maruten gel (caffeinated)

At 7:00 a.m. promptly, the gun went off and it took me about a minute to cross the start line. All week we were sure we would be doing this race in the rain, but miraculously it wasn’t raining when we got to the start. (It was raining while we were waiting in line for the buses.) The road did feel slippery in places with my carbon-plated shoes, which I know is an issue for some of the carbon plated shoes. I ended up wearing the same make and model of shoes I did last year at CIM: the Saucony Endorphin Pro+. I really wanted to wear the Saucony’s latest carbon plated shoe: the Saucony Endorphin Pro v3, but I had had issues with my feet falling asleep during some training runs. A lot of those training runs happened on the treadmill, so I thought it was just the fact that I ran slightly different on the treadmill and there were no undulations on the treadmill but it still happened slightly when running on the roads too. I was this close to running in the Pro 3, but my assistant coach (aka Craig) talked me out of it the night before, and it was a good thing because I’m not sure I would have made it. (I may have been like this girl who ran the last 10 kilometers in her socks because her shoes were bothering her!)

I do my best to feel out my goal marathon pace at the start, but I end up checking my watch a lot otherwise I end up going too fast or too slow. I came through mile one right at 6:48, which was perfect.

Going into the race, I was 90% sure I could break 3 hours again. I also thought I could probably PR if things went really well because I had hit splits a tiny bit faster in some of the workout compared to last year. Plus, if I didn’t have to stop at the bathroom this time, that would save me 30 seconds off the bat. I did training runs at a 6:40 marathon pace, but I also like to train just a few seconds faster so that on race day the goal pace feels “easy.” I didn’t really think I was capable of a 6:40 pace throughout the whole race (which is a 2:55 finishing time) but I also couldn’t help but think: “what if?! . . . . .”

Speaking of having to use the bathroom, within a half a mile of the start, I started leaking pee and was so mad at myself for drinking all the water I did that morning. But in my defense, I had about 12 oz of liquid, stopped drinking 60 minutes from the start, and then peed about 20 minutes out from the start. The urge never got that bad that I had to stop and pee, but if I had, I wouldn’t have PRed!

Anyway, at mile 3, I was feeling really good running a low 6:40, so I was pretty confident I could run a sub-3. I thought maybe, just maybe I could maintain that pace throughout the entire race but after a few more miles with splits in the mid-6:40s, I knew that was outside my capability. I took my first gel at 30 minutes, which was a Gu Roctane (cherry lime flavored).

Mile 1 – 6:48
Mile 2 – 6:52
Mile 3 – 6:41
Mile 4 – 6:45
Mile 5 – 6:47

These first few miles flew by! Several times, I thought, “Wow, we’re already at X mile.” Or, “Oh wow, I thought this was mile 6 when we were actually at mile 7.” I took my second gel ((Maurten – non caffeinated) at one hour into the race.

Mile 6 – 6:50
Mile 7 – 6:49
Mile 8 – 6:48
Mile 9 – 6:50
Mile 11 – 6:44
Mile 12 – 6:45
Mile 13 – 6:45

I went through the half in 1:29:20. This really solidified I could run a sub-3 hour marathon, and I was even more optimistic I could set a new PR. Last year I went through the half in 1:30:08, so this year I was almost a minute faster. I thought if I could run the splits I did at the end of the race like I did last year, I could run around 2:56/2:57 for a finish time.

I kept trying to aim for splits right around a 6:45 pace, which you can see I was pretty consistent throughout the entire race. I focused on taking my gels every 30 minutes, which meant I took my third gel (Huma+ strawberry lemonade that has a little bit of caffeine) at 90 minutes. I think it was around this time that the sun started to shine. I, by no means, thought it was hot or even warm, but I did wish I had some sunglasses.

Mile 14 – 6:44
Mile 15 – 6:48
Mile 16 – 6:45
Mile 17 – 6:44

I am really proud of only having a mere 6 second spread in splits between miles 4 and 23. Over the years, I’ve really worked on being able to run consistent splits in workouts, which of course translates being able to run consistent splits in races too.

Honestly, I don’t remember too much between mile 15 – 20 (which I also wrote about in last year’s post). I just focused on running a consistent effort, picking it up a little when I felt good, and continuing to get my fuel in, which ended up being a fourth gel at two hours: a Gu Roctane cold brew flavored energy gel.

Mile 18 – 6:49
Mile 19 – 6:49
Mile 20 – 6:49
Mile 21 – 6:47

Right as mile 21 is ending, we run up and over a bridge. I came up on Instagram follower of mine, and she encouraged me to go with her. Right before that, I had taken a gel (a UCAN Edge, pineapple flavor) but happened to squirt it directly to the back of my throat, which caused me to choke and not be able to breath very well. I had to slow down just a tab in order to catch my breath, but then was able to catch up with her again. (I still don’t know who this was, so if this was you, please let me know!)

It was at this point in the race last year that I was really able to drop the hammer, so I tried to do the same thing again this year. I definitely picked up the pace and really tried to make it hurt as much as possible. But you can see in the chart below comparing my splits from this year to last year that I was able to pick it up, but not as much as I was able to the previous year. I was picking people off and passing quite a few runners, but my toes were feeling all the miles and my muscles were screaming at me to be done.

Mile 22 – 6:47
Mile 23 – 6:43
Mile 24 – 6:41
Mile 25 – 6:34
Mile 26 – 6:43
Mile 0.31 – 6:54 min/mi pace (at least I knew I was spent running slower than I had been!)

Official time – 2:58:10

As I came up on the last mile, I was pushing and giving it everything I had. I knew I could run a sub-3, but wanted that PR too! As I ran down the homestretch, I saw that 2:5X on the clock and thought of how exciting it was last year to see those same numbers. I crossed the finish line, stopped my watch, and immediately closed my eyes and bent over, knowing I had given it everything.

After I caught my breath, I checked my watch and saw indeed I had gotten a small PR! A 14 second PR compared to last year. I am very proud of this, but it was also a lot of work over an entire year for 14 seconds. Haha!

Here’s a comparison of my splits from last year to this year.

2021 CIM Splits	2022 CIM Splits
1 – 6:53	6:48
2 – 6:46	6:52
3 – 6:43	6:41
4 – 6:49	6:45
5 – 7:17 (bathroom break)	6:47
6 – 6:45	6:50
7 – 6:46	6:49
8 – 6:47	6:48
9 – 6:50	6:50
10 – 6:46	6:44
11 – 6:51	6:44
12 – 6:51	6:45
13 – 6:49	6:45
14 – 6:45	6:44
15 – 6:48	6:48
16 – 6:46	6:45
17 – 6:46	6:44
18 – 6:39	6:49
19 – 6:45	6:49
20 – 6:46	6:49
21 – 6:46	6:47
22 – 6:28	6:47
23 – 6:39	6:43
24 – 6:30	6:41
25 – 6:10	6:34
26 – 6:24	6:43
7:06 pace	6:54 pace
26.45 miles	26.31 miles
2:58:24	2:58:10

As soon as I finished, I gave a couple other runners hugs and congratulations and then waited for my sister to come through. I saw the clock click over to 3 hours, but I also knew her and I had started about a minute after, as this clock was showing gun time.

Within a minute I saw Kristy cross the finish line, and I gave her a big hug. I immediately asked her what her time was. She said she thought she had gotten a sub-3 as well! Come to find out her time was 2:59:56! Talk about cutting it close! Ha!

After the race, we found our parents, took a bunch of pictures, and then hobbled just a few blocks back to the hotel. (I love staying near the finish!)

As soon as we got back, we showered, got ready, and then met some other runners at a local bar for some food. We chatted with a few other runners, but then went back to our hotel room and took a nap. (We only half-slept.) When we woke up, we FaceTimed with our families, and then Kristy wanted pizza that night, so once again, we hobbled the 0.3 mile to the local pizza joint to get a couple of pizzas that we devoured in our hotel room while watching TV. It was perfect!

Our whole weekend in Sacramento was exactly what I wanted and needed with my sister. Both of us running a sub-3 hour marathon was the icing on the cake as so often it seems like we are never on the same page with our training. This is one thing I wanted to do more of now that we live closer to each other, so I am looking forward to more weekends like this!