MCM: Ants In My Pants, the First Miles

Isn't our team cute? This was right before we headed out to the metro to catch the train to the starting line. I couldn't have asked for better weather, I got the right amount of sleep (like 7.5 hours!!!), I was all pastaed up...but...I felt so insanely nervous. Like, I felt like I was going to throw up. I kept forgetting my mantra that Gina helped me with ("My spirit fears nothing."), my stomach was off kilter and I pretty much did not feel like I could run 26.2 miles. I tried to suck it up as much as I could though.

We left en masse for the starting line. We lost Gina and Donna and the rest of the team almost immediately, but I wasn't worried. Especially when we caught up to them before we even got to the runner's village. We couldn't find the rest of our team but luckily we ran into Coach Steve, who also couldn't find the rest of the team. He got on his phone and was like "I've got 5 of them here." Which for some reason made me laugh really hard inside, which I attribute mostly to feeling sick with nerves.

Gina, Donna and Pam went to check bags and I decided I should go to the Port-o-let. By the time Bill and I had gotten back, the team was gone, so we decided to book it to the start. It was a good thing we did. It was massively crowded. It took me forever to get to the 6-7:00 finishing time area, and I had to get all the way up to 3:45!!!! (Ramon said we needed to start 30 minutes ahead of our projected finishing time.) I think that number (3:45) made me sick to my stomach as well. Last year I would have been happy with finishing anywhere lower than a 5, so the number seemed way crazy to me (even though I wasn't trying to finish there). It was like swimming in concrete. I could NOT get anywhere. I JUST got to the 3:45 flag when people started moving forward.

I was concentrating on my strategy. Keep it at 9:40s. You can go up to 9:50 or down to 9:30 but THAT is the window. If I did that, I would be able to get my 4:13 I wanted, which was my "aggressive goal". Even though Ramon said that only 20% of the people who try get their aggressive goal, I knew I could do it. In fact, for some reason I had the number 4:11 stuck in my head (which I guess was my secret goal) and to emphasize that, I had the song "Come Original" in my head (I guess because it was by 311 :).

By the way, that's me in the purple in the center.

The first mile felt a LITTLE hilly. It was also crowded. I was frantically looking for the clocks they keep at each mile to see if I was on pace. Well, they didn't actually have those clocks. Just little white signs with red writing marking off the miles. So I totally missed the first mile. But at the second mile I clocked a 19:25. According to my pace bracelet I should be at 19:27. Perfect!

My third mile was 9:06. Whoops. I told myself (out loud) "Em, slow down."

My fourth mile? 9:06. Whoops. Yes, I am good at keeping a consistent pace. This was sort of freaking me out. I tried to slow down and enjoy the scenery. It WAS very beautiful out...kind of foggy. At one point we could see the top of the Smithsonian Castle (I think) peaking out of the fog over the water. It was cool.

(Obviously this pic was taken by Bill, not me.)

My fifth mile I was able to slow down a bit and logged a 9:37. This is when we started running into all of the wheel chair athletes. I don't know if it is just how the MCM was set up, or because I was further up than normal or what, but it seemed like there were a LOT of wheelchair athletes in the middle of the runners. We had to keep "making a hole" to let them through. It was a little strange. I mean, it was very inspirational to see them go through (those wheelchair athletes are truly TOUGH) but it was weird to keep weaving right and left during the race.

Sixth mile? 9:09. WTH??? I was REALLY concentrating on slowing down and I KNEW at this point I was screwed. I really needed to run at least my first 9 miles slow and here I was speeding through. I was so mad at myself. This is the mistake I made at my very first marathon and I definitely paid for it in the end. I did NOT want to have to walk this one at all, and at this rate I was headed for disaster.
I really yelled at myself this time. "SLOW DOWN."

Seventh mile? 10:06. Ok. Too much. I tried not to freak out about it. I also was having all sorts of issues with things visually psyching me out. Like the girl right in front of me. She had a shirt on that said "I'm Going to Beat Sarah Palin: 3:59:36". Or, the 4:00 pace group that JUST passed me. Somewhere around here was the big hill too. It looked huge. But you know what? Because of where it was in the race it really didn't bother me at all. In fact, I felt great at that point.

8th mile? 9:05. I was really freaking out at this point. I was not following Ramon's number one rule: BEHAVE. (It was even printed on his singlet in huge letters). So I needed to make a decision. I kept telling myself to slow down because I was going to screw myself halfway through and be in awful awful pain. But at the same time, if you haven't been able to slow down for 8 miles is it really productive to tell yourself that it's going to suck at the end if you don't slow down? Those first 9 miles are so important and I'd already blown 8 of them. So I tried to fake myself out. I told myself this:

Uh, Emily, you've been training harder than ever. Maybe you are just this fast. You will be fine. After all, you wanted a 4:11. You can do this. You are just this fast. That's why you can't slow down.

I don't think I really bought it. But I just kept telling myself that anyway.

Mile 9: 9:30. Much better. Much calmer. Good job, Em. :)