McKirdy Micro Marathon – The Race I Knew Wouldn’t Go Well

THAT. WAS. SO. HARD.

I’ve said it before; I’ll say it again: the marathon is a beast!

The twenty week build to this race since the Indianapolis Marathon went nearly flawlessly. I definitely had some small bumps in the road but they were minor, and for the most part I had an incredible build. I felt like I gained fitness faster than usual, recovered really well in between workouts, and overall, I felt so strong with how things progressed.

It wasn’t until about 3-4 weeks prior to the race when a few things threw me off this upward trajectory: I ran out of my iron supplement for a couple of weeks, we traveled to Hawaii for a family vacation, I had a head cold that was annoying, and I started having more niggles than usual. One of these things probably wouldn’t have affected me too much, but the accumulation of all of these things made the last few weeks of training a little rocky. I didn’t have to change up too much of my training, but it definitely played with my mental game as I approached race day. I still did my best to focus on everything that went right, but I’m sure my subconscious was still dwelling on these hiccups.

I flew to New York early Thursday morning before the race. I could have taken this same flight Friday morning, but I wanted a good night of sleep two nights before the race, so I chose to leave Thursday morning. I left for the airport at 2:45 a.m. Thursday morning to catch my 6:15 a.m. flight out of Minneapolis. I had a short layover in Detroit before landing in White Plains, NY (a small regional hub) around 11 a.m.

When I got to the hotel, I did a four mile shake-out run, and then stopped at Whole Foods for all of my carb loading items for the next couple of days. After checking into my room, I spent the rest of the day relaxing, working, and just hanging out in my hotel room. It might sound boring, but a hotel room all to myself with no one to bother me definitely feels like a vacation to this mom. Plus, I am good at keeping myself busy between posting on social media, athlete plans, and this blog.

Friday morning, I woke up, went for a 15 minute shake-out run, which always feels like the shortest run of my life. I then went back to the hotel room, got ready, and did some more work.

That afternoon I prepped my bottles for the next day before turning them in at bib pick-up. Each person in this race got 8 bottles, which were staged on a table that we passed every three miles on the looped course. Cullen and Bjorn decorated my bottles before I left, and then I taped a gel to the outside of each bottle. I positioned the tape at the top of the gel, so that when I pulled the gel off the bottle, it ripped open the gel. Inside the bottle was powdered Gu Roctane Drink Mix mixed with water. I did fill the bottles to the top with liquid as we were instructed to do this in case it was windy–that way our bottles wouldn’t fall over.

I went to bed Friday night feeling good about my fitness, had very little anxiety, and ready to see what the next day brought.

Saturday morning I woke up around 4:15 a.m., got ready, ate my breakfast, and made a reel for Instagram. My head was in a good place, and I wasn’t very nervous, which isn’t the norm for me. But when my fitness is good, my confidence is strong, and this helps calm my nerves.

I have race day nutrition dialed in from years of marathoning. I start eating about 2.5 – 3 hours before the race and then spread my food out throughout the morning. This day I started with a Nature’s Bakery fig bar and coffee. I like to space out my food on race morning as it is a little easier to get down and one big lump of food doesn’t sit in my stomach all morning. I also think this helps spread out the calories so your body can use the energy almost on a slow trickle. I had a banana while getting ready, half of a bagel before leaving my room, and the other half while driving to the start. I also sipped on a water bottle with LMNT in.

Since it was such a small race, there weren’t any buses to the start, and you had to provide your own transportation to the start. It was about a 25 minute drive to the start, and when we got there around 6:15 a.m., it was still pitch dark. I used the bathroom, and then did a very minimal warm-up: some light jogging, stretches, drills, and strides. Finally, I changed into my race shoes (I chose to wear the Adidas Adios Pro 4–and I loved them for racing!), and then took a gel (Maurten caffeine).

The race started at 7:00 a.m., and as I was standing, waiting for the race to start, I was shivering, so I knew that was ideal for a cool race start. As soon as the race started, I found my groove right around 6:40 min/mi pace. It felt good, and I promised myself I would keep this pace until at least half way. I didn’t want to get out over my skis too soon.

We did almost nine laps around the lake at Rockland Lake State Park. It was very pretty and scenic, and very, very flat, which was great. There was a dashed white line marked on the path, indicating the tangent line, which I loved having. It was one less thing to think about, and I just had to follow that line rather than using brain power to constantly look up and calculate the tangent line.

During the first lap, I was running with a few other people. I was happy to have company, and I was feeling good about the effort. After the first lap is when we got our first bottle. There were twenty-five tables set up, each with four bottles spaced out on them. My bottles were on the very last table, in the first position. As soon as I saw my bottle, I grabbed it, and drank some of my water with Gu Roctane powdered drink mix in it. I have to be careful I don’t drink too much liquid, otherwise I will have incontinence. Unfortunately it is something I still deal with 5.5 years postpartum. (Thanks, Bjorn.) I’ve done some physical therapy for it, but clearly not enough.

Mile 1 – 6:40
Mile 2 – 6:44
Mile 3 – 6:41

After I got through this first water station, I was running with a small group of others, but they were now starting to pull away from me. It seemed like they started running about a 6:35 min/mi pace, and it felt just a little too hot for me, so I stuck with my 6:40 pace. However, this left me running all by myself. I knew there was a big gap behind me based on how people were cheering as I ran by. I figured I’m used to solo runs and workouts anyway, so I just accepted this is what it would be.

Mile 4 – 6:40
Mile 5 – 6:46
Mile 6 – 6:39

At thirty minutes, I took my first gel (a Maurten gel), which I had carried on me. I then just kept tabs on my pace to make sure I was hovering right around that 6:40 min/mi pace. The GPS around the lake definitely had some spots where the signal wasn’t great. I was also trying to take manual splits, but sometimes I remembered and other times I did not, so my splits were all messed up on my watch by the end.

The second time passing the bottles, I grabbed another bottle, took a few sips, and then tossed the bottle. I did attach a gel to each bottle, but I didn’t always take the gel because I wouldn’t be able to stomach a gel every 20 minutes. It was a fun experience to have bottles and not have to carry all my gels. (I still carried a couple in case I missed a bottle.) However, since I drink so little, it wasn’t necessarily something I felt like I really needed.

Mile 7 – 6:43
Mile 8 – 6:44
Mile 9 – 6:41

Shortly after taking my second gel (Maurten caffeinated) at 60 minutes, I went to wipe the stickiness off my lips with my shirt. As I tucked my chin and pull the top of my crop top up to my lips, all of a sudden my left trapezius muscle totally seized up. It was pretty painful, and I remember thinking, “Well, now I will forget about the pain in my legs.” My legs weren’t in pain at that point in time, but more-so any future pain. I tried to massage it to loosen it up, but it was still pretty painful for several miles. Eventually I forgot about it because other things started bothering me more. But now four days post-marathon, it is still the most sore part of my body, and I still can’t turn my head all the way in either direction.

Around mile 12 is about when I started thinking how long the marathon is, and I started questioning my sanity for doing this. I started swearing off marathons because I still had a LONG way to go. I was still feeling okay, but maybe this is when the loops started getting to me and not having company to run with started affecting me. I will say the crowd support around the lake was quite good for a small race, so I can’t complain about that. But it also wasn’t the support of a medium to large-sized marathon.

Mile 10 – 6:40
Mile 11 – 6:41
Mile 12 – 6:40

At 90 minutes the thoughts were getting even more negative, and it was then that I realized it was time to take my next gel. I remember a dietitian saying that if your thoughts start going negative during a race, take a gel. So I took my next gel (Gu Roctane) and waited to feel better. Except I didn’t, which confirmed these negative thoughts probably weren’t going away.

I was still right on my 6:40 pace. I knew if I could keep my average pace under 6:45 min/mi pace, I would be able to PR, so that was my focus. Going into this race I was hoping to run 6:35 – 6:40 min/mi pace. I thought on a good day I could do 6:35 pace, but even a 6:40 pace would be something I was happy with.

Around mile 14 is when I started feeling like my breathing issues (EILO – exercised-induced laryngeal obstruction) were starting to come on. I can’t really articulate how I knew because I didn’t feel my breathing change initially, so maybe it was more of a subconscious feeling, but after dealing with it for 20 years, I guess I just notice it more easily.

Mile 13 – 6:36
Mile 14 – 6:46
Mile 15 – 6:42
Mile 16 – 6:42

It really dislike miles 15 – 16 of the marathon because you are barely over half way and you still have 10-11 miles to go, which is so far. It was on this lap where I definitely noticed that my EILO was starting to kick in. My pace wasn’t slowing yet, but I could tell my breathing was becoming more labored.

At mile 18 is when I finally had to stop. I was gasping for air, and I just couldn’t continue to run anymore. I bent over, took heavy, labored breaths and tried to control my breathing. I was trying to slow my heart rate down because it also skyrockets when my my breathing spikes. At this time, I knew any time goals were out the window. I ended up stopping about 10 times during the last 8 miles. (It honestly felt like more stops.) Also, sometime in here I tried to take my fourth gel (Gu Roctane), but it was so thick and sticky, I only got about half of it down. And then I never took my fifth and final gel because I wasn’t worried about speed, and it was the last thing I could focus on.

When I got my 7th bottle, I drank a bunch of water from my bottle, and I realized I was much thirstier than I thought. By this time I could tell the temperature had rose, and I was dehydrated. I took several long sips of water, then threw my bottle off to the side, and stated jogging again.

On this second-to-last lap, I had to stop a few other times to slow my breathing, catch my breath, and try to bring my heart rate down a bit. Now my stops were also turning into sob fests as I realized my goals were all slipping away from me.

I continued on the path, willing myself to keep going, and playing mind games that I didn’t really have six more miles to run. The thought of dropping out and DNF-ing did cross my mind, but the thought was pretty fleeting. I knew I could get to the finish line, it was just going to take more a while. I also remembered they were going to close the finish line at 3 hours and 15 minutes, so crossing before that became my new goal.

I feel like I had to pull out all the mental games just to keep going:

-Do it for your kids.
-Only one more time you have to run by *this* spot on the course.
-You are lucky you aren’t injured and can still run.
-Just keep putting one foot in front of the other.

As I was running to grab my 8th and final bottle, all of a sudden I saw someone trip and fall right in front of me. She either tripped because her legs were extremely tired or she hit a bump/divot in the ground. Either way, I ran up on her, about to help her, but then I saw a volunteer moving toward her. I was trying to decide if I was going to stop and help her as well, but when I saw the volunteer move toward her, I started running around her. As quickly as that volunteer moved toward the runner, she then started stepping back again. As soon as I went around the runner, it dawned on me that the volunteer was stepping back because she couldn’t help the fallen runner. We were in a professional race, and us athletes cannot receive outside help. Clearly my brain wasn’t working well at this point in time with everything that I was battling and lack of carbs that I ran around the girl thinking the volunteer would help her. I just kept running, and now I am like, “Why didn’t you help her Michelle?!” “Your time goals had been thrown out the window by that point anyhow!” Luckily this runner didn’t stay down for long, and she passed me again within a couple of minutes, but man I am kicking myself for not helping her. I tried to find her after the race, but I wasn’t able to.

I grabbed my final bottle, drank a lot of fluids, and then continued on my way. My final lap of the course was a three mile slog, and I just wanted to be done. More stops. More tears. And more pity parties. I thought about what I was going to text my coach, and I knew all of the people tracking me would now know something had gone wrong with me.

Finally, I passed the mile 26 mile marker and could see the finish. It was a pretty ugly finish as I shuffled across the finish line, sat down, and bawled.

After a few minutes, I finally got up, found my friends, and we commiserated together because there were a lot of people who didn’t have a great race.

Official results:
3:08:19
7:11 min/mi average pace
27/30 women’s place
(10 women DNFed, which I think puts in perspective how tough of a day it was for a lot of people. Of course there were people who had a great day too!)

Now it doesn’t get past me that I know many people only dream of running this marathon time. I still acknowledge that this is a reputable time–it was just about 15 minutes slower than what I wanted to run.

Looking back on this race and on the decision to do this particular event, I definitely forced it to come together. The logistics weren’t coming together that well as Craig already had a commitment this weekend. I tried to find a different marathon in the March/April time frame, but nothing was exciting me. I went back and forth on what to do with my coach and finally decided to make this race work. I barely got into the race as I got the literal last spot. Finally, after I got everything squared away, I had a gut feeling that the reason this race wasn’t coming together very well was because I wasn’t supposed to do it and something was going to go wrong. I will also say that after four marathon PRs in a row, I am bound to have a bad one eventually. Of course hindsight is 20/20, but it makes me wonder, and I will probably approach decisions differently next time.

This is going to take a while to heal from mentally and physically. I am proud for finishing, but it still stings. I know I will be okay, it is just going to take some time.