Get Strong Run Strong

Race recap #3: the first half (thanks to everyone indulging my recaps a la Emma Bates 🤣)

Races have more meaning when you attach non-goal related importance to them. Those other intangible, personal reasons for running can carry you through the toughest miles. This race, I was running for people I know who couldn't run, either due to injury, or because their life was tragically cut short. I intentionally wore yellow in remembrance. 💛

This race was also a celebration of all the work I've put into myself in the last 5 years. I've grown so much since I committed to myself and my journey to get strong so I could run strong. (I live my business name 💯).

I had memorized the splits from my coach & I fully trusted her plan. All of my workouts pointed to the possibility of running sub-3:30, and I truly believed I could.

I arrived at the race at 6 am, sat on the grass, chatted with a few runners, texted my people, and asked myself WTF. The nervous energy was in full swing, and I thought I must be absolutely crazy for signing up to do this again.

At 6:30, I ate my banana, passed an extra one to another runner, and got in line for the porta potty. I met another runner from England and just made it to the corral at 7:20.

If you've ever run Chicago, you know that GPS is completely unreliable for at least the first 5 or so miles. I intended to run by effort and not worry about manually clocking miles, since I did that last year and found it stressful (and I kept missing them).

I crushed my pacing in the first 5k, coming in just 3 seconds under the planned time 👊. Then I got a little hot and came through the 10k about a minute under, but I didn't panic, because I felt great! And then I was almost 2 minutes under at the 15k, so I corrected myself (unbeknownst to me at the time, a little too much), and came in just under the planned half time. I thought I had executed the first half perfectly, but looking at my splits after, I can see I probably gave anyone tracking at home a bit of a panic attack 🤣. I know my poor bottle handlers were sweating! I was blissfully unaware, and I'm glad I was, so that I didn't waste energy worrying about it.

Race recap part #1: The build

This was my most aggressive build, but it didn't feel as overwhelmingly difficult as previous builds. I had some really awesome races leading up to this one, which helped me practice what I wanted to do in Chicago.

✅ July 4th 4-miler: I learned that I can push HARD and not give up if I don't focus on pace but on effort.
✅ Paris Olympic Marathon in August: Huge confidence boost that I could run 4 hours easily, having only done 16 miles leading up to it, I walked a lot of it, it was so so hilly, and it was the middle of the night in another country and time zone after I had food poisoning on the flight over. I also learned that miles 21+ are hard no matter the pace, so might as well get it over sooner!
✅ Annapolis 10-miler in August: learned I could push through nausea (and what caused the nausea to avoid in the future) and ran 19 total that day.
✅ Philadelphia Distance Run in September: felt calm and confident instead of ridiculously anxious which is usually my go-to. Practiced superb pacing and running the last stretch strong and not giving in to fatigue, which served me so well in the marathon.

Other notes about this build:

👉I let the paces come to me in workouts instead of chasing them.
👉I fueled and hydrated better than ever before, during, and after runs.
👉I chilled out a bit 🤣. I focused on controlling everything I possibly could, and then I let the rest go instead of feeling anxious about all the things I couldn't control.
👉I made it a point to have more FUN. (We'll always have our goodbye to summer adventure night run 😁.)

And the biggest difference in racing & long runs this go-round:

❤️I FINALLY trusted myself to meet whatever moment I was in, and that freed me up to flow with whatever came my way.❤️

Big thanks to my training buddies throughout the build
&
So many miles chasing the blonde braid and sharing stories and laughs with the two of you brought out the best in me ❤️❤️❤️.

thanks to another great !

The medal this year is so sparkly! Yes, that's blue glitter! 💎

My athletes and friends had strong performances, the weather was *almost* perfect (just a tad cooler would have been awesome), and I felt really good until the last mile (working through some theories with my coach on that).

No matter what happens in 4 weeks, this was a confidence booster 💯💯💯. I managed a small time PR, but the real PR was in my strength entering the last 5k and holding it down 💪 as best I could.

Every race is the opportunity to learn something new, make adjustments, reevaluate what's working and what could be improved. I'm grateful for finishing yet another race this year ❤️ and discovering more about myself in the process 👏.