Unlike in swimming, drafting on a bike is illegal in Ironman competitions and many other cycling races, although not all.
What is drafting and how to optimize it?
Drafting is taking advantage of lower air pressure when biking behind another rider (here is full explanation on Wikipedia, as applicable to variety of sports). This means you are dealing with less air resistance and you are doing up to 30% less work (although I’ve seen this number listed as high as 50% in some articles).
Effectiveness of your drafting will depend on several factors:
How far away from the cyclist in front of you are you – generally the closer the better, but some articles say that you get some benefit at up to one bike length
How large cyclist in front of you is – the bigger they are, the more wind they block!
Position relative to wind – yes, it means checking which direction the wind is blowing from and hiding before the leader
Your position in the line – in general, benefit increases with number of cyclists in front of you, with optimal position being between 5th and 8th (but not last). The leader gets a small boots though, too
Majority of drafting happens on flats and downhills – after all, as you are going faster, the benefit increases. But what about uphills? Well, there is no much benefit in there for us ‘mere mortals’ in terms of air resistance. We tend to go slower. There are, however, some benefits to have buddies on an ascent. For one thing, you are not alone trying to push through the pain and general unpleasantness. It can also help you keep up the speed. I know that I need all the help I can get when trying to climb…
Etiquette while drafting on a bike
I should probably preface this section with the following: I DESPISE drafting on a bike and it’s a fast way to get me to never ride anywhere near you again.
I have only one friend I actually ever ride with, Eric (pictured below):
He LOVES to draft. We’ve had a few fights over the issue… First of all, your drafting buddies should ride at similar pace as you do. Eric is way faster than me. But let’s leave poor Eric alone. He is a great guy and he does try to help me get stronger and faster at cycling.
So first things first: don’t be a freeloader, take your turn as the group leader. It is customary to rotate person up front every half mile to a mile. This way everybody does their share and all get to benefit.
Don’t stare at the wheel of guy/gal in front of you. You should learn how to judge the distance by looking at their back.
Ride consistently – try not to suddenly break or turn if avoidable. Point out road hazards. You know, the usual. This is actually the part where I struggle the most with drafting. First of all, I am small, so I can’t see over people in front of me. And that makes me uncomfortable (I still don’t get that on a tandem, the larger person goes in front – so you watch somebody’s back/ butt the whole time???). Trails by my house are filled with people, plenty of them behaving erratically, which makes consistent, smooth riding almost impossible.
I was told before that you need to use hand signals when you are up front while drafting. I am all for it. Except… Well, if something comes up suddenly, I am focusing on breaking/ turning/ saving myself. I don’t have mental space to make sure you don’t run into me. So back off!
Oh, and here is my last reason not to be getting into drafting: cycling is not my favorite, so I only do it during triathlons. Drafting during those is illegal, so why bother getting used to that?
Starting there, since that’s probably what everybody’s first question is. But now let’s go in proper order.
We arrived in Gdynia on Thursday evening and I got my race number (and all that stuff) on Friday. I first tried doing it at noon, but the line was insane, so I left for lunch and returned later. It was a smart decision – there was minimal line when I came back. I think it had to do with the IronKids race – people came with their children, so decided to pick up their stuff at the same time. It turned out I couldn’t get anything else done on Friday, so I did a bit of shopping and took the ‘mandatory’ picture with my name on the car and the IronMan sign 😊
The weather was bad Saturday morning, especially on the sea. I heard that 120 people quit the sprint distance in the water (I don’t know out of how many). My anxiety was in high gear the whole time. I did get my bike rental though (logistically, bringing my regular one that far would have been a nightmare, so I opted for a rental). I thought I would quickly drop it off before going to the pre-race briefing in Polish (it was earlier and Polish is my native language, so I thought I would get done earlier). Well, ‘quickly’ didn’t happen. The line was absolutely insane! I also completely did not anticipate that they will make me put on the helmet and take a picture, so results are as one could expect. That hair! 😆
fot.Pawel Naskrent/maratomania.pl
I was already starting to freak out and I was really trying to figure out what to do. And oh, the anxiety of being fully convinced that I forgot something and it will make racing impossible! Fortunately, there were other people around and they were happy to chat and joke around. I agree also with the bike just a couple of feet from mine – there was no fear that I would be so fast (or slow) that I would be all alone at any point. Just follow the crowds! The weather had a nice surprise for us, too: a rainbow over the sea. I decided to take it as a good omen. I am not superstitious at all, but I really needed something to cheer me up and that did the trick:
I did eventually make it to the briefing, although I heard only the last couple of minutes of the Polish one, so I stayed for the English one. Sadly, it rained a bit and I didn’t bring an umbrella… Oh, well! The briefing was full of entertainment, courtesy of some drunk guys. I am pretty sure they were not the competitors… As far as I am concerned, only one important thing was said during the briefing: wetsuits were mandatory. I even asked if it’s ok that mine is sleeveless and they said that it was fine. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t. Well, they allowed it. More on that later though.
I will skip talking about the pasta party the night before… Suffice to say that when I was there, the pasta was cold and they only had sparkling water. This was probably the only part of the event I could complain about. And I won’t complain – they fed me after all! (I am always hungry, so feeding me is always a good way of getting on my good side LOL).
I was so stressed about the race that I didn’t manage to get any sleep! I actually had a minor meltdown in the morning, which actually made a family member of mine laugh. I was doing it by my own choice with nothing depending on it. The day before, I got to have lunch with a family friend who used to be my English teacher when I was little (she was a family friend long before I was born and she will remain one for all eternity) and she told us the story how I used to freak out every time I would get something wrong when trying to speak English. Mind you: it was extracurricular with only 3 kids there, there were no grades or anything else at stake. She said herself: stakes couldn’t have been any lower if we tried. Yet I would still freak out if I got something wrong. Apparently that’s a permanent personality trait of mine 😅. Between those two things, my mind went to a much better place, although I was still rather stressed.
I made it to the beach way before the 8am start and got to take a couple of pictures. There were a lot of other competitors and their personal support around. It was really cool!
But I got to see one very Polish thing that made me laugh really hard. In Poland, people coming to the beach tend to bring their own screens and put those around blankets. They stake out a piece of the beach for themselves that way and it tends to get obnoxious. It’s not exactly a high class thing (if you know what I mean). As we were all getting ready to start the race, there was a family in the middle doing it. We call it ‘parawaning’ and it was absolutely ridiculous (I probably owe them a thank you note for providing comic relief):
Well, we did eventually line up. Good news: there was no waves. I have seen lakes with worse waves than what was there! Please excuse the lack of corral pictures… I lined up based on my anticipated finish time of 40 minutes. Something I did not expect: out of ~2000 participants, only 250 were women. Translation: I was surrounded by men. I couldn’t see another woman in that corral. It doesn’t help that I’m 5’3″ (on a good day). At the time, I actually didn’t know how male-dominated the race was. I was just trying to figure out what happened to all the women.
I got to stand next to guy named Maciek. If he reads this: Thank you for keeping me entertained! The wait for the start was LONG. They were doing a rolling start every 10 seconds and I was quite far back. I got to watch everybody around sweating like crazy. I am used to heat (thank you, DC summers!), so I was fine, but others around me weren’t doing so great. Eventually, my turn came. I ran into the water and that’s where the trouble started! The water was 16C (so ~60F). Remember how I said my wetsuit was sleeveless? Yeah, I regretted that. I was FREEZING! Well, my arms were. My wetsuit is pretty thick, so it kept the rest of me warm. But it felt tight around the neck. And when I started swimming, I immediately started to panic. How was I going to do it for 1.9km??? I am not ashamed to admit it: I was seriously about to quit within first 200 yards! I had no idea what I was doing. Water had zero visibility. There were jellyfish in there. And have I mentioned that it was cold? Most of my body was covered by the wetsuit, but my hands and my feet were sticking out, freezing and touching the gross critters. All I wanted was to get out of there, take a warm shower and get some sleep. I know that those moments were nothing to be proud of. But I also think it’s important for others to hear about it, since it is something that might happen to you and it helps to know you are not alone with that feeling. It’s scary and discouraging.
Based on the fact that I finished, you must have figured out I found a way to deal with it. Here is what happened next: I told my inner voice to shut up, I have done other open water races, although none of them in a wetsuit. I reminded myself that I have trained a lot in the pool (not in open water – probably a mistake, but open water is not exactly an option around here). I love the water. I’m good in the water. I can do it. To be honest: this is a VERY sanitized version of what I told myself. And then I slowed down my moves, started counting my arm stroked (I tend to do that even in the pool – it keeps my movements well paced and I don’t care if anybody thinks it’s stupid since it works for me). I quickly learned one thing: I started way too far back. I spent the entire swim portion of the triathlon on passing people. It’s a good thing that those tall, strong dudes couldn’t see that the person passing them was a tiny woman… It actually turned out for the best for me though: I got to swim a lot in between groups of people and I didn’t get kicked too much. As I was getting pulled out of the water, I glanced at my watch. It said 35 minutes 😮. Then I started to stumble around trying to figure out what I was doing… That’s when I heard voices of my family cheering me on. It really helped! I think that importance for support and cheering is way underestimated!
Can you tell where I heard them? Well, my swim time ended up being 38:02, so I clearly bounced around for a while before I got to time check there (I have no idea where that happened). I moved through T1 slowly. Partially on purpose, too – I was trying to catch my breath before biking, which is the hardest part for me. I eventually got on a bike and it started ‘uphill’ immediately: it was on cobblestone and I couldn’t clip into my bike. The whole time, my family was cheering for me (great) and filming my attempt to take off (embarrassing, considering all the fumbling!).
And then, it was off! I am a pretty slow rider, at least relative to other competitors. You can see how much I dropped in general classification on the picture at the end. I just kept seeing people pass me, especially every time I hit an uphill. But I kept going. I had a borrowed triathlon watch. It was an awesome watch, but I fumbled it. You could see on the video above that I wasn’t doing well out of T1. And then on top of it, I was trying to remember how to get the watch from T1 to bike. It didn’t go well… I started it about a mile after getting out of the gate. No matter, the watch was there just to have a general idea of my progress. This is where the issues started actually: it was in metric system, but I train in the US and my watch is in miles 😅. For better or worse, it kept me entertained for those 3:20:11 – I kept trying to convert kilometers into miles and miles into kilometers pretty much the whole time. Objectively, this time isn’t great. Subjectively, this was my best time over the 56 mile distance. I was proud of myself and looked good for pictures when I knew they were taking them:
Although this is probably way more representative of the look on my face during the bike stage of the race 😆:
Couple of notes on the ride:
I’m impressed by people who hand out water and iso to cyclists. I would have been scared! Actually, I was scared trying to grab that stuff from them. But I did and I am glad I did.
Wind sucked. I was told that the wind wouldn’t be bad. In Gdynia, there was basically no wind. Inland, on the other hand, had some pretty serious gusts.
I got HUNGRY along the way. Fortunately, I packed some candy. I can’t stand all those nutritional stuff they give you. I am yet to find one that’s not 🤮.
Taking candy out of back pocket when you are getting hit by gusts of side wind isn’t easy. I actually had to abandon a few attempts and hold on for dear life. I eventually made it through one pack.
The route was gorgeous!!!
Apparently I am still scared of high speeds on turns. I slowed down a few times when I probably didn’t need to. Or at least not quite as much. It was a rented bike I didn’t know as well though and I still have that crash from a month ago on my mind. One of the turns was objectively really dangerous though. I am not speaking from experience – they padded the outside of it with bales of hay. Also: clearly a lot of people didn’t make it through some of the turns. I know because I saw them covered in blood later on. I am pretty sure I would have had to have another serious talk with myself if I crashed because I would have been tempted to withdraw.
You know how I said that I was convinced that I would be always next to somebody? Well, by the end, people stretched out so much that I was alone. I ended up yelling on some turn asking which way to go.
I got passed by a lot of people on bike, but I am still happy with my time. I rode with average of 16.8mph and that’s good for me. I made it in one piece with plenty of time to spare. I can improve, but then: who can’t?
I really wish I could forget T2… I wasn’t moving too fast to begin with, since my banged up foot was bothering me when trying to run in bike shoes (I went to ortho today – I have a bruised bone from my accident a month ago). I changed, ate some more of my candy and got ready to go. That’s when I noticed that my helmet was missing. I spent a couple of minutes trying to find it… I will be writing a whole another article on lessons I learned during this race, but here is a free bee: if you lose some marked piece of gear, just go. It will turn up on its own eventually. But then I finally got on my feet and started running.
Based on the fact that I have already ran 5 marathons, I am pretty sure you can all guess that this is the sport I’m most comfortable with in competition setting and I knew exactly what I was doing. And you would be right. My foot was hurting some and I knew I wasn’t going to be fast, but I picked a pace and decided to stick to it. I know it wasn’t an impressive one and I didn’t really know how it related to my usual runs (remember – the watch was on metric system, which is not how I have everything calculated and committed to memory). A few people commented on my running that I should pick up the pace. I was happy to pass them later on… But unlike them, I have enough class not to comment on other competitors’ paces. Even when they were running out of steam and opting for walking. We all had our own work to do!
Since the run portion was in form on 3 loops around downtown Gdynia, there were so many people cheering, music and general excitement! I love hearing the crowds and it made it easier for my daughter to cheer for me. I waved at her and yelled back to her every time I saw her along the way! Here is the back of her head – she is the little girl in teal (not blue LOL) shirt and purple skirt. Sometimes I don’t understand her outfit choices… Anywho… It was so great to hear mini-me come out and cheer! It made me so happy!
I enjoyed running through this arch. They had an announcer there and he called me ‘pink obsession’ on my first lap. And the other two laps. It made me chuckle. I loved that – I was already like 5 hours into the race and any distraction from the pain and being stuck in my head was welcome.
So one more thing about that arch: have you noticed on the first picture that there was a mist? Apparently it was hot and they had cooling stations along the way. The high was maybe 85F! Probably not even it. The worst I could say is that it was really sunny. But again: that sun is nothing comparing to DC. So while other competitors were doing weird stuff to keep themselves cool, I was thinking that there is a lovely breeze and avoiding being sprayed with water (I didn’t want to have wet running shoes).
By the time I was half way done, I really did think of just walking the rest of the way. I actually got in my mind that maybe I could finish under 7 hours (my original plan was to just finish). I yelled at my family to figure out how much time I have left to make it happen. At 5km to go, I got my answer: I had over an hour left to do that. This actually gave me a new goal and boost of speed – I can do 5km in under half an hour, which meant that there was an off chance of me finishing under 6:30. I did my best on the run. I gave it all. I tried to speed up on the mat and that’s why I know I gave it all: I wasn’t able to pick up the pace a single bit. But I knew I made it to the finish line, so I was thrilled:
And then, I found out I finished in 6:29:47:
fot.Mariusz Nasieniewski/Maratomania.pl
No, jumping up for joy was not an option… But I was thrilled! I barely made it under the 6:30 line, but I did! I didn’t even dare to dream of that before I started! This was the payoff for a year of really hard work and I made it!
Here are my actual times (some parts are cut off):
I ended up placing 1663, which is great! I ended up placing 46 out 57 in my age group. I was actually 18th on the swim! Turns out I really underestimated my swimming prowess!
Next post will be on lessons I have learned during this race. There were a lot of them…
Now it’s time to look for a new challenge… I’m thinking a full Ironman race… The other 45 marathons… Maybe open water racing… I am pretty sure it will be all of them and the main question is how long will it take for me to get around to all of it 😉
Arriving in Orlando was fun – it was so much warmer than NoVA! I got here on Friday and originally planned on getting my race packet on Saturday, but I was way too excited and did it right away. Well, ‘right away’ isn’t quite the phrase – they were surprisingly poorly organized. Getting to the expo itself turned out to be challenging, as somehow the staff at Disney Springs had problems telling me how to get to the ESPN Center without a car. There is a bus from Disney Springs… it’s a free Disney bus that runs on a regular schedule… not that hard… I should have taken it as an omen for what was about to come! The whole expo was horribly labeled with people stumbling around, trying to figure out where to go. Fortunately, what they lacked in signage, they made up for in number of volunteers. They admitted that they were having problems with figuring things out themselves. Happily, I managed to get all my stuff. I put on my shirt and happily visited the expo. It was great! I loved seeing all the little runner things. One fabulous upgrade from the usual: Disney-themed merchandise. A lot of cute stuff!
And yes, another photo op! I have to say that my bib number made me really happy. I know it’s silly, but having consecutive digits made some little ocd part of me smile wide.
I really enjoyed the walk between buildings, too! These stands were so nice! For all the organizational issues, photo ops are to notch at Disney! If you want a race to make memories (on Facebook and Instagram in particular), this race is the way to go!
Sadly, in the Disney race merchandise store I was disappointed. They had kid runs during the weekend as well and I really wanted to score something cute for my daughter. Sadly, there was no kids stuff. I ended up buying a sweatshirt in smallest size they had. It was too small for me, so that’s a good sign. I guess she will get to grow into it 😉. I will say this once, so I don’t repeat myself later on: I understand that Disney is all about princesses, but I was sorely disappointed by lack of strong girl items. The only option I saw was Rey (Star Wars) shirt (which was not that cute). They even started to have strong role models in movies, like Mulan and Mereida. Can we please promote it? Why can’t a girl be cute, smart and strong?
Then came this email on Saturday evening. I always say that ‘I’m of northern people’, meaning that I prefer cold weather and do poorly in heat. Humidity is just a ‘bonus’. I did worry about it and took every precaution against chafing I could think of, including for areas of low likelihood of chafing. Spoiler alert: I chafed in a lot of places, some of which I am to embarrassed to talk about.
Now we are entering the world of great organization 🙂. My hotel was one of Disney hotels (not Disney resort hotels though – that will be important later) and it had morning shuttles to the race. I had to pay $10, but they took care of everything and I got to hang out with some other runners. We arrived at Epcott around 4:30am and there were fluorescent cones marking the way. There was a huge line of volunteers and it was a happy place, despite the ungodly hour. Here, organization and signage was so great that volunteers were basically camera people: everybody wanted a pre-race picture! (Me too 😉). It was already nice and warm there, live entertainment waking people up, bananas for the hungry crowds and a tent for people who wanted breakfast with characters (I wasn’t going to pay for that though).
After some chatting with other racers, I headed to the starting line. There were volunteers checking people entering corrals. It was still dark, so it was nice that it was all labeled with big lanterns. We got Mickey & gang to welcome us and then the race was on. Like Philly, they did the awesome thing of staggered starts with 5 minute breaks between corrals. And these guys required proof of time for anything under 5 hours! Sadly, I was towards the back of my corral (my own fault – I preferred sitting for a while before heading to the starting line). Maybe it wasn’t that hot yet, but humidity was crazy – I was sweating just standing there! Since it was still dark, starting each corral with fireworks made for spectacular view 😊. Surprise right at the beginning: there was already people walking on mile one. I have heard that I am not the only one who gets bothered by this. But the crowd started to stretch quickly and off we went!
Very quickly after the start, there were photo ops with characters, but the lines were absolutely crazy! I wasn’t going to stop – it was already warm and I knew that the heat would go crazy once the sun comes up, so I wanted to get as far as I could before that happened (sun rise happened around 8th-9th mile for me). I did, however, try some selfies with Cinderella Castle. Here they are for your enjoyment 😆
Fortunately, I later found plenty of volunteers to take pictures for me.
Also, further down the road there were plenty of characters without insane lines, frequently even without lines. Around mile 8 my knee hurt for a while, but then it started to get so hot and humid that it became the least of my concerns. I am actually not sure if it stopped hurting or if the heat started getting to me. Either way, I just kept plowing forward. I did run out of steam though and pushing was hard. At least views were great! On the other hand, there were areas of running circles around parking lots. For anybody who hasn’t done that in full sun: you get heat beating on you from above and below. Basically what I would imagine hell to feel like. So I started to stop and take pictures with characters:
I got to see some spectacular views, like the lit up castle (I never expected to see it on the morning side of the night, empty attractions, animals from the Animal Kingdom and we got cheered by cast members. We also got to see some of the logistical side of the parks, like nursery for all the beautiful plants they put in the park and water treatment plant (it didn’t smell great and wasn’t pretty, but I like knowing that they don’t leave it to the government and the public to deal with. I actually learned afterwards that they compost banana peels from the race – kudos for that! Then there was A LOT of construction. I guess at least they maintain the roads?
Back to the race: around mile 20, I was totally dying there! It was hot, little shade and well, I already ran 20 miles. Here is another kudos to runDisney: since they knew the weather was going to be bad, they put water, energy drinks and medic tents every mile. I stopped at all of them once I finished bottle I brought with me. I would also like to apologize to people who got offended by my moaning when I poured cold water on myself 😉. I did some walking at this part and I was continuing mostly by shear stubbornness. Around mile 22/23, I turned on my ‘second wind’ youtube playlist. It worked on all four marathons before and it worked on this one. I turned it on so loud I couldn’t hear my own thoughts, but that was the point. I don’t really remember pretty much anything until I saw the finish line, where I screamed in joy ‘FINISH LINE!!!’ (Sorry poor guy who was next to me – I was probably really loud).
When I looked at my watch on the other side of the finish line, I knew I was just at about the same time as my first ever marathon. My time ended up a couple of seconds faster than Baltimore and, with 4:36:07, it’s my second fastest marathon to date (after Philly):
This picture was done by a man who made my day. As I was standing by a table sorting out through my stuff, he approached me and said he was hoping to find me and thank me. Why, you ask? He was running out of steam and then he noticed me during my final push. He saw me a lot throughout the race and knew I was running at ‘his’ pace, so he decided to just follow me and try to keep up. I was happy I helped somebody 😊. And here is the kicker: he told me he is an ultra runner!
And now we are back to the same organization level as the expo… I asked for a bus to Disney Springs. Finally, somebody told me to go to Saratoga Springs and catch a ferry from there. No problem, it’s all sitting down with AC, I can do that! Well, not so fast… After waiting for the ferry from Saratoga Springs for good 20 minutes in full sun, I decided to go back (uphill) to the bus stop and wait for the bus. By this point, I really had to pee. It took a while, but I finally got on. Bus does take longer since it goes around (it’s like a mile, but I think it’s obvious why walking was not an option), but it did show up. Let me tell you: by the time I got off the bus, I went straight for the bathroom. I considered eating before shower, but I was grossing myself out, so I opted for showering first. At this point, snails were passing me… I also had this to conquer on my way back:
At the hotel, another disappointment: the key wouldn’t work, so I had to waddle back to the front desk, so they could fix it. Their first reaction was that check out was at 11. That’s great, but I wasn’t leaving for another day! They did sort of fix it – the issue repeated that night. I did feel really bad for a guy who did Dopey Challenge (4 days, 4 races: 5k, 10k, half and full): he was checking out and they told him he must vacate room immediately and best they can do for him is let him shower at the hotel gym. What a nightmare!
Since I want to end on a happy note, quickly on the afternoon: I have never felt this sick after a marathon. And it wasn’t the throwing up kind. I was just unwell and everything hurt. After lunch I actually stopped by the Disney store and felt so tired that I sat down. After about 10 minutes, I tried to get up. I must have looked really miserable – at first, I couldn’t get my body to move at all. When I did, I still had a hard time getting up. Huge thank you a random man who came up and asked if I need help. He gave me a hand and pulled me up. I hope he knows how grateful I am for that small act for kindness. It meant a lot to me. I spent the rest of the day napping, then lunch, then dinner and sleep.
Not exactly my regular post day, but I have something on my mind: pre-race jitters. I have only a week left until Disney World Marathon and I am freaking out! Have I trained enough? I don’t feel like I did enough long runs since Philadelphia Marathon. But I also don’t feel like I had enough recovery time and my legs are still frequently feeling sluggish. So it’s a double-whammy of worries: feeling tired and not training enough. I know my time won’t be as good as in Philly – Disney has more hills. But I should be able to finish. So far, I have finished all my races, one of them with a really serious stress injury and after a month of not moving in hopes that it would heal. Yet, I am stressed about the race.
So far, I was stressed before every marathon (all 4 of them so far and the 5th one this weekend). I was so concerned about the Baltimore Marathon (my first) that the only people who knew were my sister, my parents, my friend who let me crash at her place and a friend I was using as the emergency contact. The race went well and I got to brag to everybody. I know that 4:36 isn’t the world’s best time, but I was happy. When I ran the Marine Corps, I was way more open about it, but still nervous. It’s to the date the only marathon I ran with company (and I won’t be repeating that mistake ever again). My time wasn’t awful, but one day, I will post about the experience. It wasn’t good. Vermont was the third one and a whole another story due to the injury. I was still nervous, since I had such a long rest time and didn’t get through my long runs. My finish time was slow, but the race was absolutely spectacular.
And then there was Philly. I was so nervous! I knew I did everything I was supposed to. I guess it made the stress worse in some ways: I started to have ambitions regarding my finish time. I did make it with a pace lower than 10 minute mile I was dreaming of. But the day before, when I was stressing out, my friend who came out with me decided it was time to reason with me. He reminded me that I have been training hard. I have done several 20 mile runs. I already finished 3 marathons. So why am I still stressing??? Well, if only reason was enough to make the jitters go away… He was 100% correct of course. But it’s an emotion and reason wasn’t helping.
I have read articles that jitters help you perform your best. I read articles about power of positive thinking. I don’t know after how many races you stop being nervous. Once I get there, I will definitely let you know. For now, I will do my best to just be jittery, not a nervous wreck 😉
First things first: it’s been two weeks now since my marathon. My body stopped hurting, so that’s good news. However, my legs still feel tired. I am not sure if that’s still from the marathon or is it from the new set of exercises. I am trying to figure out if the stretching is making my hip better or worse… I think I will go with better, while the workouts are making it worse. Hopefully, at some point it will all work itself out. In the meantime, I need to go see an orthopedist. I have a small bone sticking out on my right foot and it sometimes hurts (especially when wearing ‘cute’ shoes). I showed it to Diana and she agreed that something is wrong and gave me an exercise for it. It was one of the best feelings you can tell your family over a dinner table… The pain just went away. If we were still in the habit of burning witches, she would so be the first one in line! Every time I tell her about something that’s going wrong with my body, she makes me do some exercise and suddenly I’m ok. Pure magic as far as I am concerned 😉. I am still planning on making my way to an orthopedist though. This may need a more complex solution than just pain relief and I put a lot of strain on my feet.
I also got done with compulsive overeating (although I still want to eat more than strictly necessary). Well, maybe I should go back to eating more carbs though. I did 30 minutes running intervals and 30 minutes swimming Friday night, 10 mile run on Saturday and went for a 20 mile run today. I ended up with 18 miles, mostly due to lack of good will for running further, fueled by hunger. I have been eating normally since Thanksgiving and it looks like I need to up my carbs intake. People carb load for a half marathon, what made me think that I shouldn’t do it for 20 miles??? I guess I ate a large plate of pasta last night, but that’s definitely not enough. I actually had to stop during my run and pull out a snack I was carrying (I always carry food, since I don’t like being hungry and just dealing with it).
I have been asking my friends for thoughts on increasing my carbs intake. I started by asking my Filipino friend about rice. He had zero understanding for my feeling that plain rice is no fun and I get bored of rice really easily. He said he eats it three times a day and can’t imagine a meal without rice. So no help there. Even though I’m Polish, somehow potatoes are not really my thing. I loved french fries like the next person, but come on: all that grease isn’t good for me. Pasta? Yes, I enjoy that, although I would like to step up my pasta sauce game. What I make has been getting repetitive and rather low on veggies. I do love bread though. For now, my main carbs are bread. Any carb-heavy, healthy recipes will be appreciated 😊
Are you wondering yet why I am still running 18-20 mile long runs and thinking about carb loading? It’s because I have only 6 weeks left until my next marathon: Disney World. That will check off state #5. I am a little excited, although right now I am looking mostly forward to tapering 😉 I already entered lottery for the Chicago marathon and I will probably sign up for Ogden, UT in May. The four months between marathons should give me a bit more time to rest, although I will still be trying to stay on top of training. I guess keeping things closer together forces me to ensure that I don’t stay on the couch too long and lose it all. On the other hand, my legs keep feeling tired and being a couch potato for a weekend sounds appealing. Even I can get tired sometimes. And believe me, I am that person with levels of energy that scare people. Oh, well, I surround myself mostly with people who have similar energy to me (or at least can handle it). Time to stretch for a bit and then get some much needed sleep!
Let me start with what I am sure what everybody wants to know first: I finished in 4:20:39.
Now, off to the story:
I got to the Expo around 1pm. I was too anxious to get my stuff to eat lunch, so I was definitely getting ‘hangry’. I got the bib, shirt and backpack and it was time to go eat. I have heard later that some people didn’t care for the shirt. Personally, I love it! I think it’s nice and simple, you can see what it was for and it’s really comfortable (I already washed it and I am wearing it right now actually). I did get a huge lunch (Panera across the street!) and then enjoyed the Expo. I insisted on scouting out where the starting line is and that made for a nice walk. I was happy to be with a friend though. He is a good size guy and that part of Philly doesn’t make a small woman feel comfortable.
At the Expo, in the shirt
Leaving hotel before 6 was quite something! For one thing, I was alone (my friend wasn’t running, so he went right back to sleep after I woke him up while getting ready). I was fortunate enough to quickly spot somebody else going to the starting line and asked to tag along. Creepy spot when it’s dark and most people are asleep… For the other, the temperatures were absolutely freezing! I am always cold (except for at night – I produce a lot of heat, but I never get to keep it, except with help of blankets), so that was a problem. Fortunately, the organizers anticipated it: they provided heating tents. Sadly, most people clearly didn’t shower that morning… I have an exceptionally good sense of smell, so YUCK!!! Fun fact: Philly Marathon had a bus taking people to the start line from about half a mile away from the start line. We agreed with the guy I was walking with that if you can’t walk half a mile, how are you going to run 26.2??? It also helped us warm up.
On the subject of the starting line: they did a lot well in there. Lines to the port-a-potties though were ungodly! I thought about going, but after one look I understood I don’t really have to go. An hour later, just before starting, I knew how wrong I was… But, alas, it was too late – I would have to look along the way for ‘an opportunity’.
Warming up before the race
Philadelphia Marathon was the first one I got to experience wave starts. It was AWESOME!!! I was close to the front of my corral and started at a good pace, so no fighting for position and dodging people. I am sure there were plenty of people aligned in the wrong spots, but the groups were much smaller and it was easier to get moving. I can’t say enough good things about this idea!
I finally managed to find a port-a-potty without lines close to mile 9 marker and was able to get rid of the ‘excess weight’. It made running a lot easier and good timing, too – it was right before the only serious uphill of that marathon. That’s another lovely part of this marathon: there are some hills, but all of them are low grade, so it’s not as obvious. I keep mentally comparing it to Baltimore, where hills are pure insanity. They are short, but steep and there are soooo many of them.
Something I did not like about this marathon: lack of clearly marked medic station (they get compared to Marine Corps Marathon, so that might be unfair – those guys set up basically field hospitals staffed by military prepped for pretty much anything). Unfortunately, I have that stupid hip problem and at some point, it started to hurt. I was hoping for a bit of motrin and I had the hardest time finding somebody. I eventually did, but by then I was seriously hurting and the pain spread from hip to my knee and my leg muscle started to cramp up like nobody’s business. Here I need to give a shout out to Bruno, a friend of mine (shameless plug: and the best realtor ever!): he texted me at a perfect moment that he is cheering me on. Somehow that text snapped me out of my head and I pushed through. I did start to sing ‘just keep mommy-ing, just keep mommy-ing!’ It’s like ‘just keep swimming!’ from Finding Nemo and it’s how my daughter cheers me on (in sports or in doing something questionable). I am glad that I was able to get snapped out of that, too. I started to hear that in my head around mile 14. If I kept singing that to myself for another 12 miles, I am pretty sure I would have to be committed at a mental institution…
People who were live tracking me noticed that I suddenly got second wind somewhere around mile 23-ish. It was my secret weapon: sea shanties. Back in Poland, I used to go sailing in high school and I got used to the idea of sea shanties giving a good rhythm. So when I need that extra push, I pull my favorite Polish shanties play list, turn it on as loud as I can and let that beat do the work for me. I wouldn’t recommend it for a longer distance, but it’s great for the strong finish, when you have nothing else left.
Speaking of nothing else left: I listened to Diana (my trainer) well and carb loaded since Halloween (ok, maybe that was a little longer than she told me to, but better to start early, right? 😉). I never hit the wall! I did do a lot of long runs, too. So maybe I was great prep. Or maybe it was my hurting leg, which was consuming all of my suffering attention. One way or another, I only walked when I was drinking water at the water/gatorade stations and stopped twice (once to pee and once to stretch out my hurting leg). It was great!!!
Standing on Rocky’s footprints, already with the medal
My parents called me to congratulate me even before I had my medal! That was really cool, even if I couldn’t hear them and I was too distracted to know what was going on around me. I was so pumped about my time though that I didn’t care! I think I told everybody that my time was 4:20:07 (it was before I got the official results and that’s what the app told me). Still, it was way better than my results in the past. I did 4:46 a year ago in Marine Corps and 4:36 three years ago in Baltimore (I don’t even count my time in Vermont, since I had a stress injury and didn’t run for close to a month before the race). I still can’t believe it! I keep thinking that without issues with my hip, I probably could have been closer to 4:10. Now I have a goal for Disney World in January! I don’t know if I can get all the way down to 4 hours in the next 8 weeks, but under 4:20 should be doable. I hope they don’t have too many steep hills… (I kind of don’t look at the profile, so it doesn’t scare me).
After the race, I did what I thought of as ‘mandatory photo op’: I went to the top of the stairs at the museum, put my feet on Rocky’s footprints and had my friend take a picture. There was a lot of other marathoners doing it. I kept cringing on the stairs, but I will admit it: I was milking it a bit… Because why not 😉
Oh, boy, did I! Improvement of 16 minutes!
This was such an amazing race! It will probably take a while for the high to wear off. I hope my legs will feel better by then, too. It’s mostly my left knee, associated with my stupid injured left hip. My trainer actually explained to me where majority of knee pain comes from in long runs: when you get tired, your steps get sloppy and that fatigues your knees. My hip and then knee issue definitely confirms that. This week, I will stick to strength, swimming and biking. I will be back to running by next week.
HONORABLE MENTION: I always love reading signs along the route. There are many that repeat, some I don’t get, but then, there are some special gems. One for this time: Pain is just French for bread. And who doesn’t love carbs??? Honestly, I had enough pain that I could open a boulangerie! 😆
I’m less than a week away from the Philadelphia marathon, which means weather forecast is available. Imagine my shock when I saw that it will be 28F (-2C) on the starting line! As the race goes on, it’s supposed to warm up all the way up to 42F (or 5C) 😮 . I will admit it: I don’t feel very well prepared to races in the cold. I always stuck to running during somewhat warmer times of the year. The part that’s tricky for me: anybody who sat next to me on a boat on a cold day can tell you that I produce a lot of heat, but I radiate it all out. That’s how I’m always FREEZING. But if I wear something that doesn’t breathe, I overheat instantly. I think I chose the clothes right. And at the starting line, I will be wearing an old, shrunk sweater I can throw away. Funny story on the sweater: previous owner of my house (a construction worker by trader) connected washing machine, switching hot and cold water hoses. I would say he was being passive aggressive, but based on shape of the rest of the house, I will say it: no, he was that stupid. The sad part is that it took me forever to figure it out! So yeah, I boiled all of my sweaters, since I tried to wash them on cold. Oh, irony! Let’s go with an optimistic spin: I got to replace old sweaters with newer ones 😉
🙁 Bad news for the race: my hip has been hurting. I think it’s about time I explain the hip thing. It’s one of those moments you wish there was a camera, even if it would have provided me with plenty of embarrassment. But think of going viral on youtube! About seven and a half years ago, I went on a run on a treadmill and some woman got on the treadmill next to me. She was on it for less than a minute, then got off of it, without turning it off. She looked at weights for another minute and left the gym. Strange behavior, but whatever. And that’s my ‘genius’ happened. I leaned over to turned it off… Yeah, I am sure everybody can figure out what happened next: I lost my footing and flew off the treadmill. That must have been site to behold… It took me a long time to figure out something wrong. In fact, I started to realize something was wrong with progress of my pregnancy. Many years later, I am usually ok. However, since I started this new training plan and I have been diligent about stretching and that makes my hip act up. I did 10 miles today and I sure felt it. So I guess some icing it down and rest until the race day!
🙂 Good news for the race: I did those 10 miles at 9:11min/mile pace, which is good for me. I used to use 10min/mile as a standard conversion for the longest time. I am psyched about this improvement in pace! I know I won’t be keeping it for all 26.2 miles, but even if I slow down a bit later in the race, that should still let me PR. A friend of mine is going with me to Philly and he promised to keep me company for the last few miles to help me stay motivated. I am lining up in the 4 hour corral and let’s see what happens! Keep your fingers crossed for me! 🤞
My lovely trainer told me to start carb loading a bit. I love that! I keep eating a lot of bread and all my meals include some solid carbs like pasta and rice. Who doesn’t want spaghetti and meatballs for dinner? I am really set with my dietary habits, so this is an adjustment, but I can’t complain. I am also no longer constantly hungry, so I’m loving it! It will be hard to go back to a more vegetable-based diet afterwards…
On the other hand, the taper thing… I was given 25 miles to run yesterday. I will admit it: I didn’t make it that far. I did 20 miles. I had still energy left at the end, but my hip was starting to bother me. I’d rather not risk an injury two weeks before the race… I have to admit that one hand, I have been looking forward to resting, because this new training regimen has been keeping me tired. On the other hand, I haven’t been running quite as much (replaced by biking and swimming), so I am enjoying running a lot more. Variety – the spice of life! At least now I have fewer workouts for the next two weeks. I am still doubtful about 16 miles next Monday. I really don’t want another long run… I have been thinking: maybe if a person obsessed with running doesn’t get to do it for 2-3 weeks much, they just go nuts by the time race comes and then they make up for the lost time? I sure would!
I am less than three weeks away from my next marathon. I am equal parts excited and anxious! I feel like I have been training forever, but changing it up with swimming, biking and strength training has helped ease the monotony. I have started training with a personal trainer only a little over a month ago, but it sure has helped. It does make me anxious though that I am not running quite enough. I know I do, but since when is anxiety rational??? I know I can finish, the question is how long it will take. I am aiming for 4:30, but it will all come out on the race day. I was waiting for my trainer to send me a new training program, so I ‘cheated’ on the regular plan with a run. I already did my bike intervals in the morning and core workout at lunch. I was supposed to swim, but I hurt my shoulder the other day (more on merits of good form when exercising in near future…), so that was out. I love running! It felt like easy 6 miles, so I was surprised my pace was 9:04 min/mile. I was going for my planned marathon pace of 10 min/mile. I know Garmin was telling me I was going way faster, but it felt awesome! Sunny, cool afternoon, no wind, no crazy crowds… How could I not? Tomorrow, it will be back to regular plan (hopefully, I will remember to run according to schedule and only according to schedule…).
