Episode 10: Race Recap-2020 Virtual Marine Corp Marathon
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Hi, thank you for listening to Chasing Life, a podcast aimed to help encourage you to chase a positive, healthy, and fulfilling life. I'm your host, Sarah Kane, and I'm so grateful you decided to join me. I'm a single 30-something dog mom, runner, and higher educational professional.

After struggling with a quarter-life crisis where I learned a lot about myself, I pursued and earned my MBA, got the good job, bought a house, but still struggle with fulfillment and continue to chase goals in running my career and life. I feel called to share what I've learned and continue to learn in the hopes that my story and tips will help make an impact on your day and help you feel less alone. Let's chase life together.

Hello and welcome to another episode of Chasing Life. This week's episode is going to be a recap of my virtual Marine Corps marathon. It happened about a week ago and I am really happy with the way the results were. I'm really happy with the training plan and so I just thought I would kind of back up and share my experience with everything and maybe it will inspire you to run a marathon. I'm

So first I want to share that if you are looking for any tips on how to run a virtual race to check out episode three. When I registered for the Marine Corps Marathon, one of the benefits was that I received access to a personalized training plan through the app called Run Coach. Now this is available to anyone, but there are different price ranges.

ranges. There's a free plan, which is what I utilized, and it was customized based on previous races and my race goal. Now my race goal for my virtual was three hours and 45 minutes. And this seems like a stretch goal because my previous time in two

2018 was three hours and 54 minutes. So I entered a time for a half marathon, my personal best half marathon, which was 144.33. And then the plan was customized. And I started following this plan in May. So about five months before

build up to the race. And the workouts were challenging but doable. And it increased my mileage from about 30 miles a week to my peak was 50 miles. And my peak month turned into 180 miles for that month. So it was

a big jump in my training from what I was used to. I was running four days a week. Most runs were by the peak. I was running seven to nine miles during my weekday runs and then my long runs were of course in the high teens or 20. I ended up running two 20 mile runs throughout the course of my training plan and I did have a couple of

I was concerned throughout the plan, not because of the training itself, but just because of my body. So I had some times where my knee was giving me some problems. It felt like it was cramping up or it was really stiff.

But thankfully, it didn't ever get so bad that it caused me to limp while I was running. Typically, the pain would come after a run. So I'd have to ice it or put heat on it, take ibuprofen. But it basically was tolerable for me to get through the training. And the good thing was that it came toward the end of my training. And so I kept thinking, like, if I could just get a few more weeks, if I have to take ibuprofen to just make it so that...

I can complete my runs. I was being safe about it. I was listening to my body, but at the same time, it wasn't causing a limp or any kind of pain while I was running. And that was the key. I also had one run where my hip flexor felt really tight. Now my hip flexor is a sensitive issue because a few years ago when I was trying to train for my first marathon in 2016, I had

I had that plan completely derailed because I had a really tight hip flexor and I was limping through those runs and I ended up seeing a physical therapist for it. And it was really a learning opportunity for me to be conscious of how much I was stretching after my run and also aware of just the fact that I sit a lot because of my day job and

And so then I go and run and then I'll probably sit afterwards. And so, you know, it was really an opportunity for me to learn how to take care of my body so that I could stay healthy and continue to improve my running. So all that to say is that my training wasn't without issues. So I was really glad that when the taper came around,

It was a great time for my body to really recover and the injuries from maybe that were caused somewhat maybe from overuse had time to heal, if you will, or just feel better. My taper went really well. It was about two weeks or so leading up to the race.

And my last long run was seven days before the race and it was 12 miles. And then five days before the race, I did some interval training. Now that's one of the things that runners might not know is that yes, a taper is great, but you also don't want to taper too much and just go completely into easy miles. It's good to do some speed workouts. You're still challenging your legs somewhat

without just kind of losing all of your fitness buildup a little bit before your marathon because so i planned to run my virtual marathon at a local park it worked out that i could do five loops of the park it was a little over five miles each loop and then i would go a little bit extra to finish that 26.2 miles i had some friends that thankfully agreed to support me on my race one rode with me the whole way

and one was in charge of my water stations and fueling. So they met me about 15 minutes before I planned to start. We went over kind of the plan of attack on where the water stations were going to be and what I wanted for fueling at each of those stations. And really, the day went better than I could have expected. I started right at eight o'clock and it was a little cold,

In fact, I probably should have wore gloves, but I knew that my body would warm up after a little while, so I just kind of sucked it up for the first 15 minutes, even though I couldn't feel my fingers very well. It warmed up to the mid 40s and each lap of the park, I was feeling better. I made sure I started really slow. I actually found a pacing plan

from Run for PRs. That's R-U-N for the number four PRs. You can find them on Instagram or they also have a podcast. And so I decided to follow their pacing plan, which basically starts to at 15 to 20 seconds slower than your goal mile pace.

And that's in order for you to conserve energy. And this was really important for me to make sure that I did because the last marathon I ran, my legs blew up at mile 23 because I was going too fast. Because I was trying to stay with a pace group instead of just running my own race and negatively split the course.

course like I normally do. And for those who aren't aware, negative splitting a race means that you run faster the second half than you did the first half. So I was very cautious going into this

marathon because I didn't want my legs to give out on me in the later miles like they did in my last marathon. I trusted this plan of starting pretty slow and not getting in my head of thinking like, oh geez, like I'm not going to be able to make up this time or, you know, how is this going to go? Am I going to reach my goal time? I followed the plan.

And I change paces every five to seven miles or so and work my way down to 10 seconds below my goal mile pace. By the end of the race, my legs felt so good that I was running 30 seconds under my speed.

goal marathon pace, which also just goes to show that I probably should have set a slightly higher goal. You know, I could go back and think, oh, I could have maybe gone faster. My main goal for this race was not only to finish, but to just feel good at the end because I was so discouraged after my last marathon. Because I didn't feel good at the end, I was struggling the last three miles of my previous marathon. And I didn't want to feel that way again because it's

It's a really tough mindset to have to overcome when you train for months for a race and you have three and a half, four hours to prove what your training has done. And it's really disappointing when you put in months of work and to have it all go astray in a couple hours.

So I didn't want that to happen again. I might have chosen a slightly conservative goal, even though 345 was a stretch goal for me because I had never run that pace before. But my training plan had actually projected that I could finish in 338. I finished actually right in between. I finished in 341.46.

a time that I'm very happy with. It's 13 minutes faster than my previous marathon time. Could I have gone a little faster? Maybe. But again, I was conservative because of the mile 23 barrier that I wanted to make sure that my legs

We're still feeling good at when I hit the last few miles of this marathon. I just let my legs go. I stopped looking at my watch and just started running by feel. I knew I was going to make my 345 goal. And so it was just a matter of feeling good at the end.

Looking forward to having my friends and family greet me at the end. And when I crossed the finish line, my parents were there. My nieces were there. My brother and sister-in-law were there. And I had about a half a dozen friends who were there. And I was just really grateful that they all agreed to come and support me on this race. And my five-year-old nieces were the ones who gave me my medals. And so that was a really special memory to have with them.

Because if I would have ran the race in DC, like it was originally planned, none of those people would have been able to see my finish. My nieces wouldn't have been the ones who gave me my medal. It would have been a Marine, which would have been very special too. But my nieces were very excited to be the ones to give me my medals. All this to say that if you are training for a virtual race,

Try to have things to look forward to set it up like you would a normal race It did come with a bit more logistics. I had to make sure I mapped out the route around the park I had to make sure I brought my own fuel not only for during the race But after the race as well because there was no post race tent for me to go and pick out on all the food there so there was a lot of things I needed to remember to pack and

But if you just write a list and you think about what you normally would have on race day and just realize that you are the ones who have to bring it now, you know, I think you can really make the most of a virtual experience. For more tips on that, check out episode three. The last thing that I want to share on this topic is the fact that you have to trust the training process. Using the Run Coach app was new for me and I wasn't sure, you know,

you know, how it was all going to turn out. But now that I've followed it and now that I've seen the results that it has, I'm even more excited to set new goals for myself. For example, a Boston qualifying time seems within reach now.

For my age group, or at least within the next couple years, the time that I will be shooting for is a 3:35, which is about six minutes off from my current time. And it seems attainable, seeing as I just chipped off 13 minutes from two years ago. Granted, the faster I get, the harder it's going to be to chip away time. It's not something I ever thought I could do before. When I first started running,

I was running 10 minute paces. And so to run a marathon at an average of an 8.27 pace, just completely blows my mind. But it's really exciting for me to consider that maybe I can...

obtain a Boston qualifying time before I turned 40. It just goes to show that with consistency and proper training, the times are achievable. You just have to put in the work and you have to follow a guided plan that is developed for your current abilities, but also challenges you so that you can improve. Now that I

found this customized training plan. I'm excited to use it for future races, whenever those might occur again, whether in person or virtual. I don't think I will do another virtual marathon, though I had a very positive experience, but it is difficult to train for it when part of the experience of a marathon is running on the course.

and having the course support and seeing the sites of where you register to run. You know, as of right now, I'm just enjoying the fact that I stuck with a goal. I worked toward it even though it got switched to virtual. I still achieved the time even if it's unofficial. It's still something that my body did. I still ran 26.2 miles in a personal record time. Official or not,

that's still something I can claim as my running ability now. And that feels really awesome. I was riding the high of this finish for quite a few days after the race, and that's what makes it all worth it. You know, that's what makes the

5 a.m. wake-up calls in the middle of the summer to run before it gets too hot out. There was times that during this training cycle I didn't want to get stuck out in Las Vegas to help a friend and I

I was waking up at 4:30 in the morning because the 100 plus degree heat. I would try to finish my runs before 8:00 a.m. at the very latest. That took sacrifice. That was a decision I had to make but I am proud of myself for following through with this training plan, for believing in myself to do it, and I'm especially grateful for the friends and family that supported me at the finish line. I hope you found this

helpful. Maybe you could relate to it. Maybe you've been thinking about doing a marathon. Maybe you have been thinking about doing a virtual race. Maybe you found some hope in this that despite races being canceled, you could still have a very positive experience. You can still work toward improving and having goals and having something positive to focus on when so much around the world is still not

any sense of normalcy and who knows when it will ever be again. Thank you for listening and I would love to hear any of your feedback. So please tag me or share this podcast on Instagram and tag me at SarahChasingLife. Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed today's episode, please be sure to subscribe and leave a review. I would love to hear from you. Even better, take a screenshot and tag me in your Instagram stories at SarahChasingLife.