Win the Battle, Lose the War

The River Bank Run has always been my salvation the week after Kalamazoo punches me in the face. What started as simply needing a confidence booster, has now changed to wanting to continue my status in the "special" club.  Once you have the perks, experience the perks, they are hard to give up.

The perks, as great as they are, didn't live up to exceptions. I strolled up to the police officer guarded door with my shiny yellow bib expecting access for my entourage, only to be told it doesn't work that way anymore. No friends, no family, yellow bib only. What fun is this club if it's a club of one? It's not, which makes the rest of the story that much more confusing.

The start, seemed crowded, yet not like years before. It always seemed like we were running on top of each other until about mile eight, this year there was actually some gaps of space. It is surprising and depressing at the same time how many people are able to run with me. I'd really like to write most of them off as results of the rampant drug problem, thanks Lance, but for now I'll pretend they are all WAY younger than me. This is the point where I did finally see some people start to struggle with the rising temps or maybe they started too fast.

At mile ten, I started feeling something a little different.  My right foot, it's always the right side, began giving me twinges of pain. Running logic told me it was the damn roads.  I've complained, make that bitched, about the unevenness of this course almost every time it's been under my feet.  Doesn't matter if it's the marathon, the half, this 25K, all of them share this route and the first few times I even thought I was being a baby about it, but seriously there is something to this thing. I attempted to adjust as best I could find the flattest ground I could, while now actively trying to run in the few shady spots left.

Mile twelve, my foot pain became obvious there was more to it than simply running some miles on uneven roads, there was something wrong going on. Up until this point, I was hanging right with the 7:30 per mile group. To stay in the "special" club, the average needed  is 7:47 per mile, so I had some breathing room, but really couldn't take a break either.  The question became, how bad do I want to stay in the club or do I shut it down to hopefully prevent damaging my foot or at least making it worse? Ego, thick headedness, stupidity, desire to stay in the cool club that wouldn't even let me bring my friends, won out.

The last few miles were hard, painful, and hot, but I managed to fight through it to continue the streak of eligibility for the club. After, it felt like walking on a marble under my heel, sure hope it was worth it.

*Update* - Two days after, still could barely walk on it. Been icing it like crazy.

*Update 2* - Ten days after, haven't been able to run yet    

10

Three years, three humbling experiences. The Kalamazoo Marathon has my number. Inexperience, overconfidence, fear, so far have been the results, what will this year bring? Some friends refuse to do it. Others ask me why I continue to do it. Not even sure how to answer. It's not a rivalry, because it's completely one sided at the moment. The course is awful, the only miles I like are the first five. The weather, is always warming up at the worst possible time. It might be simply be because this is my city.

Two days after I committed to doing this race again, I mean officially by signing up and paying money to force myself, I found out the course had changed. They actually managed to make it more difficult, as if that's been the reason for my struggles, yeah, it's been too easy. So much of running is mental and I have to be honest, this is where I checked out. I can't say it's the whole reason I cut back my training, but it definitely played a factor. There is just something about this course that feels like kryponite to me. Even training runs on it, when the mileage is less, mentally it messes with my psyche now and easy runs end up stirring up memories resulting in bad times.

Lack of training, how does Murphy's Law get me? Why of course by giving me the lowest temperatures for this race since I've been doing it! Figures! Whoooosh! Went the start of the gun this year. While I got some reprieve with the temps, the wind was out in force.

The early miles were uneventful. My head was stuck thinking about the course changes and knowing that whole section would be where this race would be either be successful or turn into the nightmare.  At one point I got snapped out my runner's haze coming out of campus where a dad gave his daughter a "shadow hug" as we ran under the bridge. That was kind of cool and made me smile.

Instead of the long, boring, stretch in the scorching sun like years past, the solution to the road maintenance is sending us uphill through a neighborhood only to be dumped on the road that I'm convinced finishes me off every year with more hills, making us run it twice out and back. Then add to the mix, wtf is up with this wind which is blowing directly at us running out. I'd like to say this was my superior strategy, for this long stretch of road, I tucked in behind a clump of runners and I pretended they were my windbreaker.  While already in my head, I was convinced the wind would be in my face both directions, there were a few spots (while I'm still not convinced they equaled out) where I could actually feel the wind pushing me. That was a nice surprise. An even nicer surprise was the energy boost seeing the other runners in the out and back section. Giving and receiving words of encouragement, completely a different feeling than crowd support.  So, the section that I dreaded the most, turned out to be more positive than negative.

The ending is always a struggle, regardless. This time, by mile 20 I was still flirting with a PR on what I consider the hardest marathon course I've done. I knew a PR wasn't going to happen based on the remaining hills, but that was still moral victory enough.  At this point, my feet were sore and while a PR wasn't going to happen, a PR for the marathon that always beats me to a pulp was. This is where I decided I could take it easy the rest of the way and didn't see the point to doing anything dumb and pushing too hard.  CT was all smiles when I first saw her down the stretch, I think even she was surprised to see me this early on my nemesis. With her smile, I even felt like I was safe from having to ride home in the trunk (for once).          

Three years, marathon number 10 goes in the books as a success. Doubt there will ever be a day when it gets easy, but today I won because I'm still standing (actually, I'm not my calves were cramping something awful once I finished...but that was temporary). Will I train more next year? Probably not. Will I do it again? Probably. Will it feel as one sided as it has before? Lets just say it's a rivalry. Kalamazoo had my number, but it's now a number for me as well, #10.