When Marathons Go Wrong

Anyone who has done multiple marathons has probably had a marathon go wrong. Perhaps you went into it under- or over-trained. Maybe you rolled your ankle halfway through. Or you finished the marathon only to find out that your parent passed away during the race (seriously, the latter two happened in the same race to a guy I knew). I've never personally had a race go THAT wrong before, but there are a few doozies in my repertoire. Here I will recap the Five Wackiest Marathons Gone Wrong from my storied past.

5) Walt Disney World Marathon 2009

Mile 18, before my toe fell off

This was my very first marathon, and wow, what a thrill it was. My training was adequate, but not perfect. Due to ice storms in early December, I had to do an 18-mile long run on an indoor track, which was 252 total laps (and 1,008 right turns). That was bad enough. Then during the race at mile 23, as I was entering Disney-MGM Studios, a blister on my left little toe exploded and I literally thought my toe had fallen off. Strangely this did not make me panic, as I reasoned that they could simply reattach the toe in the medical tent. A mile later, though, I quietly sobbed my way into Epcot, where I pulled it together just in time to hallucinate that I was passing the same country over and over in the World Showcase. Post-race, my ankle dorsiflexors stopped working, so I cut my mylar blanket into strips and tied them around my ankle so that I could limp to the United Kingdom pavilion and drink Guinness.

Actually, this race was pretty great, aside from the crying and the hallucinations. I even met my goal finish time.

4) St Jude Marathon 2016

My training for this race was fantastic. Multiple 20-milers, good weather, I felt very fit. On race day, I just realized I was mysteriously walking a minute per mile slower than I usually did/than I felt like I was. This is especially unfortunate in a race with a 6-hour time limit. Fortunately the split for the half marathon finish was late in the race, so I had the option (and took the option) to finish the half rather than try for a full. This race is still my most confusing fail, since I was well trained and felt great, aside from the mystery slowness.

3) Cincinnati Flying Pig Marathon 2010

My training for this race was completely derailed. I decided to follow through with doing this race out of sheer dogged determination to "reinvent myself" after my recent breakup. Arrived in downtown Cincinnati on race day to find pouring, cats-and-dogs rain, which soaked my entire body including feet and socks before the race even began. The rain cleared up after about 6 miles, but the damage had been done. My feet were hamburger meat. The hills destroyed my muscles. The aid stations closed and I had no water in the last 7 miles. They handed me a medal at the finish but all the food and water had been packed up by then. To add insult to injury, they had lost my checked bag and took 30 minutes to find it. Sadly for my fellow racers, I was not the last place finisher of that day.

2) Green Bay Marathon 2011

Oh, you sweet, summer child.

Hubris. Sheer hubris. After the Flying Pig, I thought I could do anything. Why not do yet another marathon without proper training? All I have to do is walk it in under 7 hours and I'll get to finish in Lambeau Field. Well, at mile 5 I realized I had a huge blister. This was approximately 10 miles sooner than I usually develop huge blisters. That first blister popped at mile 13. By mile 16 I was completely alone (I sang "All By Myself" OUT LOUD as I was walking). At mile 19 I passed what would be the last open aid station which was stocked with evangelizing Christians. The insides of my feet had such massive blisters that I was supinating, which caused my feet to severely cramp on all sides from mile 23 onward. It felt as though my feet were preparing for childbirth. It was, to this day, the most agonizing pain I've ever felt, and I've been in transitional labor without medication AND been awake for a colonoscopy. Also I had to pee next to a building in downtown Green Bay because there were zero port-a-johns anywhere and I was desperate. After stopping half a dozen times to loosen my shoelaces because my feet were the size of melons, I finished in dead last place and my little brother had to give me a piggyback ride to the car. And the real kick in the nuts? I was forced to finish in the parking lot instead of going through Lambeau because I missed the cutoff.

1) Des Moines Marathon 2010

"Proof" that this race was going well around mile 12

In my 80-race career, I've DNFed of my own accord one time. It was in this marathon. The race was slated to be open for 7 hours. Halfway through I was on pace to finish in 6:30...yet the course was being shut down. Traffic was reopened. Course signage and volunteers were removed. Aid stations were packed up. I asked a passing cop for a bottle of water (thankfully he had one), which lasted me for a little while. Course marshals on bicycles were passing me, offering me pretzels, gummi bears, Twizzlers, whatever I wanted. I asked for water or Gatorade or anything liquid and was told "oh, we don't have that," and nobody went to get me some. After nearly getting lost at several intersections that were totally unmarked, and feeling sick and delirious from dehydration, I stumbled to yet another closing aid station and asked them to call for a transport to the end. I'd nearly made it to mile 19 before deciding it would be dangerous for me to finish. When I was dropped off at the finish area, I discovered that the medical tent was totally empty except for a large bucket of ice, and it wasn't even the 5-hour finisher mark.

That "marathon gone wrong" was, in my opinion, the worst example of how a race can totally blow it. Closing early is unacceptable. Having no chalk/paint markers on the course is unacceptable. Bike marshals having no fluids is unacceptable. An unattended medical tent is unacceptable. If you find yourself in a race where these logistical things are going terribly, don't be ashamed to drop out and live to race another day. If you complain, you might get to do it for free. But trust me, a DNF is way better than most alternatives.

In closing, the marathon is a serious distance, and it must be respected. If you have the nerve to do one without proper training, be prepared to suffer, and suffer greatly. If you can withstand the torture, you'll have a hell of a story. Send me a link to it.

Race Recap: Hot Cider Hustle Half Marathon

Hot Cider Hustle Half Marathon 10/27/19 Cedar Rapids, IA

Weather: 35 degrees, sunny
Terrain: roads and paved recreation trails

Distance: 13.1 miles
Garmin Data: 13.05 miles, 487.4 feet elevation gain

My husband and I hardly ever get to do the same race at the same time, so we decided to get a babysitter and make the hour drive to Cedar Rapids for a fun fall half marathon. We arrived 45 minutes before race start and easily found a parking space a block from the festival. We got bibs and shirts - a nice unisex quarter-zip long sleeve, with sleeves that actually fit us gangly folk (I'm 5'11", husband is 6'1"). The shirts were a fairly boring black with white letters, but they're nice. I'd recommend a different color for future years to the race director - maybe apple red or dark orange or gold. We dropped our extra stuff off at the car and hung out in the NewBo City Market building, which had bathrooms, drinking fountains, and plenty of seating. Lined up a few minutes before the race and started right on time!

 Hi, Mom!

The first couple miles wound through downtown Cedar Rapids neighborhoods, which was occasionally a bit crowded with lots of 5K folks making newbie mistakes like "walking five abreast" and "starting with the 7-minute milers even though I'm walking with a stroller." After the 5K split at around mile 2.5, we joined up with the Cedar Valley Nature Trail, which is a long paved recreation trail, for an out-and-back. This trail ran adjacent to the river but was much hillier than I expected, which was great. The guy pacing for a 2:45 finish was bringing the party with a killer hip-hop playlist, so I tried to hang within earshot of him for this race. We leapfrogged a bit until after the turn-around, then ran together for a couple of miles. The halfway mark on the way out was very festive, with a sign and a speaker blaring "Living On A Prayer" (ohhhh, we're halfway there! Get it?) on what turned out to be repeat, as we discovered running back. At mile 10 my personal pacer realized he was slowing too much and wouldn't finish in 2:45, so he ran ahead and my dear husband ran up to help me out. He had finished the race in 1:35 (2nd in his age group), and since he's fully trained for a marathon two weeks from now he was comfortable running back 3 miles and finishing with me.

On mile 19 of his half marathon

Not gonna lie, it was a struggle. Although my sprained ankle was feeling good, my butt was getting quite tired. Perhaps it was me not being used to the hills, perhaps it was the anemia preventing proper training, but ironically after all that great hip-hop I still did not know what to do with that big fat butt. My husband helped me as much as possible by encouraging me to "jog to that sign." We came back into downtown and I was able to jog a bit more to finish, with great spectator support, in about 2:48. Huzzah! Got my amazing finisher mug and medal, a packaged caramel apple (had the option to choose with peanuts or without), a cup of tasty hot cider, and hit the road for home.

Modeling my dope race goodies

Pros:

-Logistics. Parking was easy, having a warm place to hang out pre-race was great, and the festival area was small and easy to navigate.
-Swag. Good shirt, big mug, medal, caramel apple, hot cider.
-Course. Nice (mostly) out and back with good fall colors and a view of the river.

Cons:

-Crowded in beginning. With the 5K running at the same time and lots of newbies, people who seeded themselves badly really get in the way in narrower sections.
-No bag drop. This ended up being okay with nearby parking, but some folks might not enjoy carrying their car key for 13.1 miles.

Race Grade: A-. Very nice fall event with festive swag and great logistics!

Race Recap: Des Moines Half Marathon

Des Moines Half Marathon 10/20/19 Des Moines, IA

Weather: 45 degrees, sunny
Terrain: roads and paved recreation trails

Distance: 13.1 miles
Garmin Data: 13.16 miles, 250.7 feet elevation gain

I hadn't done this race since 2017, but I consider myself something of an expert on the Des Moines Marathon weekend. I DNF'd the full marathon in 2010 (the only DNF of my entire race career - made it to mile 18 2/3 before giving up). My reason for that DNF was, honestly, the poor logistics of the race itself, which would be a blog post in and of itself. Perhaps I'll write it someday.  But I came back and did the Des Moines Half Marathon the following year (for free - thanks, Race Director, for trying to make it right), then again in 2016 and 2017. Every year I say this race does some things very well, and some things unforgivably badly. This year was no exception!

Let me preface this recap with the following updates: 1) I found out the day before the race that my anemia was cured! My iron and hemoglobin numbers were finally back to normal. 2) On the Wednesday before the race, I mildly sprained my ankle on a hike, and spent the intervening days icing religiously. The ankle felt okay in most of my range of motion (and fine in my ambulatory ROM), so I planned to do the race but walk slower if I needed to. My foolhardy goal was still "under 3 hours."

Packet pickup was quite smooth. New this year is a jacket instead of a quarter-zip long sleeve. I actually do not like this jacket. It is clearly made for men, with a very boxy cut and thick, unpleasant fabric. My husband looks better in my jacket than I do. As a woman who was a fan of the quarter-zips at this race in previous years, it was quite disappointing. The swag bag was better, though, with more free samples and a little rubber bracelet for "streakers" of sorts (I got a "3-time finisher" one). Parking the next morning for the race was a bit of a nightmare and I ended up on level 6 of a parking garage. This wouldn't be fun later.

The start area was easier to navigate than in 2017, and I checked my bag and found my friend Amber. Started the race at a brisk walk, as we do in our long walk training together all the time. We did notice, though, that downtown smelled like a zoo. Literally. It reeked like apes or birds or something. Since downtown Des Moines takes up about 5 total miles of the course, this was disconcerting. It took about 2.5 miles to hit the first aid station, to discover that they'd totally run out of water and Gatorade. ALREADY. It was a chilly morning so there was no way the demand was surprisingly high for water. Huge ball dropped. Thank goodness I brought my own bottle of Gatorade Zero because I already knew depending on Des Moines Marathon aid stations is a fool's errand. Shortly after that empty water stop we reached the first big downhill section, where I told Amber I was gonna try jogging. Turned out my ankle felt totally fine, and my cardio felt amazing, so I jogged at least half of the remainder of the course.

AYYYYYYYY

The other aid stations were fully stocked, and because the marathon joins with the half at around their mile 18, we got all those sweet "end of a marathon" aid station perks like gels and fruit. Volunteers were plentiful and enthusiastic. The course itself was marked better than I'd ever seen it before. Nobody yelled at me to "run, not walk" (yes, I'm still angry about that from 2017!). There appeared to be more photographers than usual, even. Again, this race gets a lot right, and it helped that my cardio was feeling quite easy breezy.

This is one long-ass bridge.

I set little goals for myself to avoid going too slow but I didn't want to push the pace too hard on my ankle. I made it a goal to jog the entire Grey's Lake bridge. I made goals to jog to the next mile marker or aid station. I felt surprisingly good considering I was running on an ankle sprain. I could have run another 5 miles easily. When I crossed the finish in 2:49, it felt pretty emotional. Seven weeks ago I was in the hospital for acute blood loss anemia, and now I was back to normal and felt fit and strong. The crowd was great and I pretended the cheers were for me, even though they were obviously for the fast marathoners finishing at the same time.

Shower me with praise, good people!

After the race I retrieved my bag and saw that the line for food was RIDICULOUS. I mean 20 minutes just to get into the food area. The line seemed completely insane and senseless until I saw that there was a station where they were cooking pancakes to order. What the actual F*** is the POINT of that?! Des Moines, please, don't try to be cute. Just let people grab chocolate milk and cookies and GTFO of there. Don't make me wait in line for half an hour because SOME people want made-to-order pancakes. Put that bullshit in a different area. As it stands, the only thing I left with was the bottle of water they handed me by the medals. That long line was required for anyone who needed sports drink, carbs, anything. HUGE mistake, Des Moines. And with that big boner, I must rank this race in last place of the Des Moines Half Marathons that I've done. I've never seen that long of a line for food at any race I've ever done, and I couldn't understand how they could have screwed this up randomly when it's gone smoothly before.

I was one hungry hungry hippo.

Pros:

-Medal. Des Moines ALWAYS has top-notch medals.
-Volunteers. Very stellar this year.
-Port-a-potty situation was much improved over previous years.

Cons:

-Jacket. Go back to the quarter-zips. Or get a better jacket.
-Food line. This was absolutely terrible. It's practically a liability issue.
-Water stop layout. The first aid station should be a mile earlier, and it should not run out of stuff.
-Stench. WTF was up with the stench?

Race Grade: C-. Meh. Again, this race gets some things great and some things horribly, terribly wrong. This year just had more wrong than right.

Race Recap: Spartan Sprint Chicago

Spartan Sprint Chicago 10/6/19 Attica, IN

Weather: 60 degrees and sunny

Terrain: Off-road recreation park - sand/gravel, some forest

Distance: 4 miles, 20 obstacles
Garmin Data: 4.03 miles, 254.5 feet elevation gain, 277.5 feet elevation loss, minimum elevation 531.5 feet, maximum elevation 642.7 feet

Garmin Forerunner 35 data

Course map

Due to the Great Anemia Disaster of 2019 (see my last blog post), I decided to downgrade my planned return to the Attica Beast to a Sprint in an effort to, ya know, not die. This was ultimately the right decision because it caused me far less stress in getting ready for the event, although I think I could have finished the Beast with the hemoglobin-related progress I've made. But I arrived at the venue on Sunday ready to sprint my iron-deficient ass off with my college pal Wes, who ran Michigan without me and caught the Spartan bug. We wanted to get done as early as possible before our drives home, so we paid a five-burpee penalty to the start corral volunteer to get into the earliest possible Open wave.

We started out through a forested section that lasted about a mile. No obstacles in that mile! Just lovely forest trail. Finally we came out to one overwall, then another long distance before the next obstacle. Yowza, Spartan! One obstacle in a mile and a half. We knew there'd be way fewer breaks in our near future. Next was 6' wall which was easy, then the A-frame cargo and monkey bars. I was glad we were getting these out of the way because they always make me nervous, so I do a matching technique which is safer but takes forever. But I had good grip and plenty of strength to get through, as did Wes! Huzzah! 

Now we were into the sandy part, which was where the fun truly began. Inverted wall, then up a hill to the rope climb. Wes failed this one (it's tough to climb a rope when you have nowhere to practice), and I started scooting up with my dollar store gloves. It was my easiest rope climb ever and I rang that bell! Loaned my gloves to another gal while I was waiting. After Wes's burpees, we continued to the bucket carry, which in grand Attica tradition was up and down a sand dune. I didn't need to rest. The next obstacle, though, was a barbed wire crawl up a sand dune. Uphill, with tons of sand and rocks digging into our knees and elbows, and the wires being occasionally high and occasionally low. It was pretty sick and twisted and awesome, and of course there was a photographer at the end to capture our joy. Miraculously my shirt remained spotless on this obstacle.

We all felt like Monica Lewinsky after this.

Z-walls, which were nice and dry, then Atlas Carry which is way easier without the burpees in the middle (new rule as of August). Then a plate drag through deep sand, followed by a sandbag carry which was, SURPRISE, up and down sand dunes! All the heavy carries on this course were really playing to my strengths, pun intended. 

Heavy carry #1, feeling super duper fun

Heavy carry #2, lots of sand to drag it through

Heavy carry #3, Prom Date Bag's in love with me

We walked through a giant puddle (which there weren't as many of this year as last year) and immediately scaled the slip wall with all the grace typical of middle-aged weekend warriors. At the top of another hill was the multi-rig, which was rings only as usual. Easy clear for me, and another first-time clear for Wes! High fives all around! Vertical cargo net was nice and tight so it was really easy to get over. Then under the dunk wall, which had no rolling mud beforehand and was lined with a tarp. It was gloriously clean. I felt like I wouldn't even need to hose myself off after this race.

I look like I'm cursing in Italian.

Right afterward was a soaking wet and quite high Hurdle, which instead of the usual 5' was more like 5'8". That extra 8" makes a difference (THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID...which, incidentally, was the Phrase of the Day with me and Wes reverting to our college selves out there). I had to try a couple times to get up there, but I did it solo. [Bruised the hell out of my abs, but I wouldn't discover that until the following day.] We came out by the festival area and saw the spear throw. Wes nailed it. I...almost nailed it. Good accuracy, good power, but the ass of the spear plopped down at the last second. Thirty burpees right by the finish line, and they got my outfit filthy (I'd need the hose after all). Herc hoist went well, though, and we leapt triumphantly and ran across the finish line to glory.

Unfortunately, style points don't count.

We are the champions!

Pros:

-Venue. Just such an awesome venue in Badlands Off-Road Park. And even better when it's totally dry! The forest had no mud, and the sand was not nearly as "let's get in everyone's shoes" as it seemed last year. We also got to scale some dope rock walls this year. I just FLOVE this venue.
-Parking. Steps from the festival, easy to get into, even better than Spartan Sprint Minnesota if you can believe it. Let's just put all the logistics into this category because it was all very smooth. The layout of the festival was tight and intuitive and nothing had waits.
-Obstacles. This was the least grip-intensive course I've ever been on. It was mostly about raw strength on tough terrain. It played perfectly to my training and let me feel very confident despite my potentially precarious health situation.

Cons:

-Mile markers weren't perfectly placed. Seriously, that's all I got. 

Race Grade: A+. My first-ever A+ grade, because seriously, MILE MARKERS (which no Spartan racer takes seriously anyway) are all I could come up with for a con. This event is a must-do in the Midwest. Next year I might do the Beast AND the Sprint just to enjoy as much of it as possible.