Lessons from the Virtual One City Marathon
Almost exactly a year ago, I lined up for the Newport News One City Marathon with the goal of qualifying for Boston. This would require a finish time of 3:30, with an average pace of 8:00/mile. My training up to that point told me this was possible, but anything can happen in 26.2 miles, and I was pretty nervous going into it. I’ll spare all the details (you can read more here), but the end result was a Boston-qualifying marathon in a finishing time well below my goal.
And then, of course, everything got cancelled. I’ll skip over 2020 because nobody wants to re-live that mess again, but it’s only in the last few months that live races have started again. Personally, I’m not quite ready to sign up for a mass in-person event (even though a lot of companies have pulled this off safely!), but when the Virtual One City Marathon opened up, I knew I wanted to test my fitness while supporting a great local business (Flat Out Events).
Until just a few days before the race, I decided I would run pretty easy (for me) with a few friends, who planned on 8:00-8:30/mile pace. That sounded good to me. I knew I could do it (I ran that pace in September, and went a good deal faster in October), and having fun for 3.5 hours on a Saturday morning with some awesome people sounded like a great idea.
Then, the Sunday before the race, my thoughts started whirling. I was fairly confident I could beat my time from last year, even though I wasn’t specifically training for anything. During the summer and fall months of 2020 my training volume went up to 70+-mile weeks, minus an injury glitch in November. I knew I had gotten faster, but since I haven’t actually raced since March 2020, I didn’t really know.
I didn’t sleep much that night. I was calculating whether or not I thought I could hold a 7:30 pace for the back half of the course, and finally decided to swing for the fences. Why not? Either way, walk, run, or crawl, I knew I could finish, and the time didn’t actually matter for competition. I asked a good friend who was meeting us at the halfway point to run that pace with me for the second half, at least until I fell off the wagon.
As they say, the best laid plans…….
What happened in reality is that my legs were fresh, ready to go, and I was excited. The first half of our run saw averages closer to 7:40/mile (I mayyyyy have pushed the pace a little bit), and I felt good going into mile 14 when my friend joined. We picked up the pace, and soon it felt harder than I thought it should…until I looked at my watch and noticed we were running closer to a 7:20 pace (which is actually a pretty big difference in a long run!).
There was a brief moment of self-doubt as I saw the times click away and started to worry that I wouldn’t be able to hang on. But I pushed those thoughts out of my mind as quickly as I could and just decided to keep my legs moving.
Somehow, after mile 20, I hit a new gear. I was tired but still felt good, and I didn’t realize that the pace quickened until I started seeing progressively faster miles on my watch. While I was secretly harboring bitter feelings toward my ‘pacer’ for going way faster (hey, I think everyone is a little mad by mile 21!), he knew what I didn’t - that I was selling myself short in my original goal - and I am extremely grateful that he pushed me so hard. I can’t say I felt great coming into the finish, but I knew I could finish well. At mile 25 I realized it was my last shot, and I clocked a 6:55 mile, which I did not think was possible at the end of the marathon. The last 6.2 miles of the marathon were far faster than the first (here are all my splits if you’re curious!).
I finished. I stopped my watch. And I was shocked to see a time of 3:17:24, which works out to an average page of 7:29/mile. While this is nowhere close to elite level, my original goal of averaging 7:30 for the back half was smashed, along with my PR (and the course ran a little long, so I actually covered more than a marathon in that time).
After I finished, I celebrate with friends. I got confetti popped on me. I ate my traditional chicken Pad Thai and laid around the rest of the day. And in between all that, I realized a few key lessons I learned along the way…
Behind-the-scenes work doesn’t always feel fun, but it will pay off. All the early alarms, the painfully humid summer runs, the 15-miler in ice and sleet…it was doing something in me that I saw come to fruition on Saturday.
I have to believe in myself, but sometimes others have to believe in me first. If I didn’t think I could run those paces, I never would have tried…but if my friends didn’t believe I could run faster, it wouldn’t have happened either. I need people around me just as much as I need to believe in myself and the work I’ve done.
3. Beneath every success is a ton of people to get you there. While I’m pretty self-motivated, I am also surrounded by dozens of people who make me better in every way. From group long runs with running buddies to friends who cheered for me along the way (literally sometimes) to a husband who takes almost every single early morning toddler wake-up (Willow literally thinks I run instead of sleeping at night!), even a small success like this one is made up of a whole lot more than just me.
At the end of the day, this run isn’t life-changing, and while I’m proud of my time, there’s a lot more to life than just running. But after growing up without a speck of athleticism, it’s fun to feel like I’m good at something athletic. And the last big takeaway from Saturday? I know I can run faster.
Here’s to the next marathon…and beyond.