sprint. run. jog: SUB4 or die

If you remember back in October, I was pretty sure I was going to break four hours at the Nike Women's Marathon.

Well, stuff happened and I didn't get enough fuel and I finished at 4:11. It was a hard loss and definitely defeating. I signed up for the Surf City Marathon to redeem myself. Last week, I was starting to feel worried and not so confident in myself. Plus, I was putting a lot of pressure on myself to break 4 hours. (Plus, I had already announced it to everyone!!!)

Saturday night, I left a friends baby shower early and went to bed at 9pm. I was totally scared and almost talked myself into running an easy marathon without my garmin (I'm glad I didn't). That night I couldn't sleep and was up at 4am to head over to Huntington Beach.

Can you see the lack of sleep in this pre-race pic? ( I also wore this shirt on my 1st SUB4 attempt)

I told myself, "run an 8:30 pace for the first 13 miles". I knew that I could do that and felt good at the start so I decided to give it a try. I know that this isn't a great pacing strategy and I really want to work on that, but in the moment I felt like running a strong 1/2 would be a great confidence booster.

After mile 13, I told myself to get to mile 15 at this same pace. I still felt ok, I felt tired but I still had some gas left and there was only a slight tingle in the back of my thigh.

Mile 15-20. I told myself I could slow down a little, but nothing over 9 min/mile. It worked but it was so hard after mile 18. Mile 17- 24 was an out and back. The first part was a mental challenge, coming back was a little easier since I already had seen some of the landmarks.

Mile 20-26 were slow. I was probably running 9:40 min/mile. My legs were screaming. I wanted to stop and sit down, but I knew then it would take me longer to finish. I played more and more mind tricks with myself, basically bribing myself to get to the next mile (with a pair of crossfit shoes, never running a marathon again and a BIG 7/11 slurpee) or physically forcing myself to move one foot in front of the other.

At mile 24, I looked at my watch and noticed I still had 20 minutes to spare. I told myself to keep moving because it was almost done, 2 miles in 20 minutes. I could do it!

and I did!