Crossroads Road Marathon

I'm training for my first ultra 50K iceage and this road marathon was part of the training. I started a little late in Jan.for training I'd been having lots of calf issues,asthma issues and I haven't really had a good base at all so I was sorta starting over. I added trail running to my week,at first I could barely get up the sand dunes we often ran on. I would run walk, power hike, and it was a huge huge struggle.I was always lagging behind and felt like I was holding the group back.they just waited for me at the top of a big hill ,listened to me complain about said hill,and on we went.Week after hilly rooty rocky sandy icey hill it went.Slowly I began to see how these horrible awful hills made the flat road seem so so much easier. I started to buy into this love the hill hate the hill thing. I logged some real big weeks for me 40 plus up to 50 at times. I hadn't done that for a long time. Marathon day came, we were running a hilly route and it was windy at times 15mph. I had run in these conditions almost every run so I really wasn't bothered by this. My marathon pr to date is 4:36 at Indy monumental a pretty flat course 3 years ago. In all my marathons past I had started out too fast and just died at the end. I was determined not to do this for this race. My ultimate goal was 4;35:59 I thought a 4:22 was achievable so my running partner and I decided to try for 10 min. pace. Our first two miles I made us do a 10:30 thatwas so awesome! I was so golden for the first ten mile it really felt like nothing we had lots of small rolling hills, and definetly felt the wind we even had a guy drafting us he kinda made me mad but whatever.Mile 15 I took my shirt off I always get real hot,we saw some other runners we knew this is a turnaround point. Mile 17 I started feeling tired and achy and I told my running partner to go I didn't want to hold her back. up until this point we were running 10-10:30. I'm real mad at myself for doing this little quitting problem I shouldnn't have done this . I had one 12 min. mile then I saw my daughter at mile 18 and she ran with me. from then on I battled with my self not to walk the whole way to 26. I had most of miles at 11 min. pace or a little below it even with walking . Mile 23-26 was very hilly and this is were I gave away my two minutes that would have gotten me my PR I did 11:30's. the last mile there is a huge hill and I really struggled. I finished 4:38 my best marathon time in 3 years on a hilly windy course. I did the quitiing thing a little, but I battled pretty hard and I learned a lot of things that will definetly help in my next race. I know I'm ready for my 50K I'm pretty excited to see what I can do.Wisconsin here I come.........................

Well, it sounds like you had a successful race to me. I know that you really wanted to finish strong with your training partner but it would have done you a disservice with respect to your upcoming 50k. I think you're in great shape right now and that you're going to kill it in the 50k. See you in Wisconsin. Great Job!

Congrats, amyjoann! A best performance in three years is something to be proud of. Looks like your hard work paid off. Keep it up and best of luck for your upcoming 50k.

From what you have said, you really have to look at this marathon as a training long run for your 50K. You're going to have a fantastic Wisconsin run. I look forward to reading about it!

Looks like you're well on the way to a great 50K. Can't wait to read about it. Good luck with the rest of your training.

That's a pretty good training run being so close to your PR with this on a tougher course. Congrats and have fun with the 50K.

Congrats! Nice work on a what sounds like a very challenging course!

Way to go getting back into it, nice solid finish!

Nice job on the race! And good luck with the 50K.