It’s been nearly a week since race day.  I was too tired the first couple of days to even think about sitting down and writing about it.  And since then I’ve used every excuse in the book to avoid writing about it because, quite honestly, it stunk.  I really don’t even want to think about that race again….ever.  It was THAT bad.  But life isn’t all about the ups, and sometimes it’s the downs that help us grow and show us what we’re really made of.  So, here goes…

Race morning was much colder than I wanted….a chilly 24 degrees.  If you’ve been around me much, you know I don’t like cold weather running.  But since I haven’t figured out how to order up the perfect weather for each race, I decided to dress in layers and make the best of it.

My husband, our two teenage boys, and I made our way to the start line together.  It was great to have the boys with us.  They bring so much life and energy to every situation.  Doing races as a family is such a great experience.

The gun went off at 7:30am and all four of  us crossed the start line together.  And that’s about the only thing I did right during the whole race.  I made just about every mistake possible.  And I’ve run a lot of races.  I should know better.  The boys went on ahead of us because they were running the half, so they didn’t need to reserve as much energy as we did.  Plus, they’re young and fast, and we couldn’t keep up with them even if we tried.

I felt great and fell into a comfortable pace as Dave and I chatted and enjoyed the scenery.  However, I kept telling myself I needed to slow down so I would have enough energy for the second half of the race.  Sometimes I wish I’d listen to myself when I have such wise thoughts go through my head..

Instead, I just kept plugging along.  There were quite a few hills, and rather than taking it easy, I powered up them.  Once again, what was I thinking?  Dave is used to letting me set the pace since I’m a much slower runner, but he kept slowing up and lagging behind me.  That should have been another clue that I needed to slow down.  Instead, I just kept setting a too fast pace.

I could write reams about the excitement and glory of the first 13 miles of the race, but I’ll spare you and just cut right to the chase.  I kept flying past pacers – first, the 5:45 pacer, then the 5:30 pacer, the 5:15 pacer, and finally the 5:00 pacer.  My previous fastest marathon is in the 5:30-5:45 range.  As I flew past the 5:00 pacer, I had visions of myself running toward the finish line as I glanced at the official clock and saw a time under 5:00.

They say pride goes before a fall.  Well…my fall began at about mile 14.  I started feeling a little knee pain, but I haven’t had knee issues in years. I wear a knee brace around my ankle during races just in case, so I paused for a moment to pull the brace over my knee and kept running.  Dave had struggled with a tight IT band from about mile 8 and had fallen behind me.  I decided it might be time to slow down a little.  If only I had done that about 11 miles earlier.

As we continued on, my knee got worse (a result of running the first half too fast and hard), and I watched as the 5:00 pacer passed us.  I told myself that was no big deal.  The 5:15 and 5:30 were still way behind us.  Surely we could stay ahead of them without any problem.

There’s my pride getting in the way again.  I’ll save you the miserable details of the rest of the race other than to say we watched as the 5:15, 5:30, 5:45 and 6:00 pacers all passed us.  As I watched the 6:00 pacer pass, I broke down and cried.  My previous longest marathon was 5:45 and going over 6 hours was complete failure in my mind.  There are no words to describe how much I wanted to quit that race.

Without Dave’s constant encouragement to keep going, there’s no way I would have made it to the finish.  But finish we did.  Our official time was 6:14.  In marathon running that is a pretty ugly time, and I was disappointed and frustrated.  I knew my pride and lack of discipline during the first half had caused us to struggle.

Do you see that kid way up in the bleachers kicking his leg up? That’s our 13 year old son. He had just finished a half marathon, but he had the energy to stand up there and dance while he waited for us to finish. I wish I had half his energy.

But my husband is one of those “glass half full” kinds of people.  And over the last week he’s helped me to see that we didn’t fail in that race nor is it something to be disappointed about.  We finished a marathon for goodness sake!

Whenever my kids make a mistake I always ask them, “Did you learn something?”  I’ve learned that mistakes can be our greatest treasures.  Disappointment can be our best teacher.  Failure can push us to keep trying, keep pressing on, and to do better next time.

So I learned two things last Sunday morning.  First, I learned not to let this disappointing race define me.  If I can take the mistakes I made in this race to make myself better, every bit of frustration from this race will be worth it.  Second, I learned to look on the bright side.  We finished a marathon.  And it’s okay to celebrate that accomplishment even if it didn’t  look exactly like I wanted it to.