Erie Marathon 2019 race recap

Oh Erie. Where to begin on this?? I’ll just cut to the chase… I did not PR (3:53). I did not BQ (3:55). Nope on 4 hours. In fact, I couldn’t drag my butt across the finish faster than I had done at Glass City this spring (4:10)! Oh my. When I crossed the finish line, I was wondering how it turned into such a sh*t show out there! I mean, I did train for this, right? I was truly humbled and maybe a bit embarrassed. So let’s take a step back….

Alan and I spent the night in Erie PA in the Wingate hotel. We filled our tummies with lots of pasta . I actually slept really well. Alan said he barely slept a wink 🙁

We got up at 4:30am and was on the road at 5:25am. They told us to arrive by 5:45 (race at 7am) for shuttle bus. We were there so freaking early, it was dark with no lines for the clean porta potties. Being early really isn’t my thing, but it was nice not to be stressing about parking, etc.

They gave us flashlights in our race swag. They were great! Especially for being in the dark porta potty 🙂

I did have big hopes when I started this race. I decided I’d hang around the 3:55 pace group because I was running alone. That worked for the first few miles, then I felt like I had to get ahead of them to reach my goals. What goals? Those were written on my arm! Best day ever would be a BQ (8:53), BQ would be sub 8:55 and sub 4:00 would be a 9:06 pace. Of those goals, I thought a sub 4:00 would be very possible, and the rest had a fair chance of happening if all went well.

Just my luck, I caught up to some super nice ladies who said they were shooting for a 3:54 finish. Perfect! I would like some company and I had fun chatting with them. We even picked up a few others along the way and kept our pace fairly even. This girl power group effort was going to happen!! We kept our pace between 8:44 – 8:54. Easy peasy.

But then, around mile 11, I started to check out mentally from the race. The pace was getting hard. I felt like the others were just cruising along and I was struggling to keep that pace. 11 is pretty soon to be feeling ready to be done, but that’s where I was. I lost pace with the girl group, and fell behind. No worries, I’m still ahead of the 3:55 pace group!

And then we hit the half point. From my right side I hear my husband calling my name. WTF?? Why is Alan waving to me from the sidelines? Why isn’t he running? He said he took a DNF because his hip hurt. No BQ for Alan. It was up to me now… but the 3:55 pace group just passed me as I came in to the 13.1 mark. Boo. For a little bit I tried to keep up with them, but I just couldn’t get any speed out of my legs. I was now running 9:20-9:45 pace for miles 13-17.

Apparently I hit the wall around mile 18 because I just kept getting slower and slower. How is it even possible for me to be running 10:30 miles?? I went from 10:00 at mile 18 down to 11:19 by mile 23. I figured as long as I was running it was faster than a run/walk, but I really do wonder if it was!

Miles 24 – finish line were 11:04, 11:26, 11:44. Ugh. I did stop by the water tables to fill up my water bottle (very quickly) but other than a couple of walk breaks, I just kept shuffling along. I saw my average pace cushion rapidly depleting, and the 4:00 pace group had passed me back at mile 18.

My only hope now was to get better than I did at Glass City. I didn’t know what that overall average pace was, but I was hoping I was getting it. Then I saw I was already at 4:00 at mile 25 and I know I wasn’t getting any faster. Whomp, whomp. As I crossed the finish line, the 4:15 pacer passed me, and I hit the finish line at 4:15. Uggggggh. What a day!!

I told Alan to take pictures of me on my phone, so he captured some beauties. This one makes me laugh because I’m saying “Just shoot me now. I can’t believe that race just happened!!” I feel like that lady in front of me had the same thought. I saw her struggling through the race too!

I guess my glute/upper hamstring pain was preventing me from going any faster? I will say it was humid out, despite being in the 60’s because I was sweating at mile 2, but I’m not going to blame that for it. I did see several ambulances and people being worked on by the medical staff out on the course. Scary stuff! I just don’t know. Maybe it’s time to reevaluate where I want to running to go in the future. For sure, it’s not for any full marathons any time soon. [NERD ALERT!] In totally nerdy tech fashion, I’ve charted my marathon progress over the years. As you see, I used to hang around 4hrs more. This past year? Slower. Maybe it’s time to hang up the marathon gigs in search of a BQ? It’s a thought!

I guess everyone has a bad day now and then, but it’s always such a let down when it’s a big race. No re-dos next week like a 5K! Right now I’m excited about this race being over. I’m looking forward to having more time to go to the gym, go bike riding, run shorter distances and do some trail running!