Race Recap: Space Coast Marathon 2012

Today’s Space Coast Marathon started off with everything against it and ended in the very best way. I haven’t been eating well. I haven’t been sleeping. I’ve been fighting an icky cold. I was out late last night and didn’t get to do my regular pre-race rituals (including sleeping more than four hours). Not to mention last week’s marathon and last month’s Ironman.

I showed up to the race late, grabbed my bib from my friend Jenny and pinned my bib and attached my shoe tag seconds before the gun went off at 6:15am. I hopped in with the 4:45 runners but in my mind I thought I’d finish closer to 5 hours.

I started just in front of the 4:45 pace group and it just felt way too slow. I settled into what felt comfortable and passed each pace group until I found the 4:10 pace group. “There’s no way I could keep up with them,” was my first thought. But as the group was running exactly what felt comfortable to me, I told myself that I could do it. If I didn’t keep up with them, it was because I didn’t want to.

I ran with them for a few miles and enjoyed the mindlessness of keeping pace with a large group. Eventually the pace seemed slow and forced. I looked at my Garmin and noticed we were pacing a 10min/mile so I passed the group and stuck with a small group of runners hovering around a 9min/mile. In my mind I knew that was too fast but it still felt easy so I went with it.

Around mile 8 I started pacing with a guy in blue with one knee strap. Together we maintained a 9-9:30min/mile average until I slowed down a bit around mile 21. I love the unspoken camaraderie between runners. When either of us would slow to get a drink, we’d quickly catch up to the other and continue to run side by side. He was my running BFF though we didn’t speak a word to each other until after the race!

Around mile 21 I started to question if I could keep up my pace. My knees and hip each took their turn to ache, then that went away. My legs got tired and then got better. I think my mind was just getting tired and negative self talk was sneaking in. Then I saw signs that read Find Your Strong and Dig Deep and I teared up and pushed on.

The final three miles were just silly. I knew I was going to come in under 4:10 (and I’m telling you I just couldn’t believe it) so I took a few walking breaks thinking that I needed it while still knowing I didn’t. After this race I can confidently say that no matter what a marathon will hurt at the end whether you go slow or fast or walk or run. It’s going to hurt either way so it’s better to get it over with early and get first dibs on the post-race food.

Finally, I saw the finish line. I ran the last part of the course around Riverfront Park and finally crossed the finish line at That makes a 36 minute PR that I couldn’t be more proud of. It also means from here on out I need to have faster marathon times! PRing this should be fun.

The post-race area didn’t offer water bottles (this is a new trend I am not a fan of), so I had a few cups of water and ate some fuel while stretching out and enjoying the crowd before making the hour drive home.

Fun fact: in the past five weeks I’ve PRed all four of my races totaling 123 minutes of PRs over 206.1 miles of races!

Garmin stats:

Total distance: 26.46

Total time: 4:07:08

Average 9:20min/mile

Mile 1: 9:05

Mile 2: 8:59

Mile 3: 9:06

Mile 4: 8:55

Mile 5: 8:52

Mile 6: 9:25

Mile 7: 9:18

Mile 8: 9:00

Mile 9: 9:04

Mile 10: 9:10

Mile 11: 9:09

Mile 12: 9:21

Mile 13: 9:13

Mile 14: 9:10

Mile 15: 9:25

Mile 16: 9:25

Mile 17: 9:13

Mile 18: 9:10

Mile 19: 9:45

Mile 20: 9:38

Mile 21: 9:21

Mile 22: 9:41

Mile 23: 9:31

Mile 24: 9:58

Mile 25: 9:47

Mile 26: 10:19

Mile 27: 9:08

Tagged as: race recap