Road to Grandma’s Marathon: Marathon Recap- A Lesson in Grit

In this episode, Katie shares a candid recap of Grandma's Marathon and reflect on one of the most challenging races of my running career.

After beginning training with hopes of running a personal best, an unexpected bout of Influenza B just eight weeks before race day changed the trajectory of her marathon build. Despite working hard to regain fitness, lingering doubts followed her into race day, forcing her to confront difficult questions about expectations, motivation, and what success really means.

Katie takes you through the highs and lows of race weekend—from travel mishaps and pre-race stress to the mental and physical battles that unfolded over 26.2 miles. What began as a pursuit of a sub-3-hour marathon gradually became a fight simply to reach the finish line.

In this episode, Katie discusses:

• Recovering from illness during a marathon training cycle
• The challenge of adjusting goals after a major setback
• Confirmation bias and why athletes sometimes ignore warning signs
• The difference between intuition, fear, and self-doubt before a race
• What happens when your race-day reality doesn't match your expectations
• The mental battle of continuing when every part of you wants to stop
• Why difficult races often teach us more than successful ones
• Re-evaluating performance goals, aging, health, and longevity as an athlete
• Finding new ways to pursue growth and joy in endurance sports

This conversation is about much more than one marathon. It's about learning to adapt when things don't go as planned, finding pride in perseverance, and redefining success when the original goal slips away.

Whether you've experienced a disappointing race, struggled through a setback, or are questioning your own athletic goals, this episode offers an honest look at resilience, self-reflection, and the lessons endurance sports can teach us.

Sometimes the greatest victory isn't achieving the goal you set out to accomplish—it's finding the strength to keep moving forward when the race becomes something entirely different than you expected.

For coaching inquiries:

Coach Katie → https://fuel2run.com

Coach Justin → https://tabularasaracing.com

Podcast Email → theenduranceathletejourney@gmail.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Hey everybody, this is Katie from Fuel to Run, and I am here post-grandma's marathon to give you a little recap and update on the marathon. As you can see, I'm in a different location than I normally am. I'm actually here in Walker, Minnesota, recording from my mother-in-law and father-in-law's house. So we did the marathon and then we're actually spending a little bit more time here, enjoying some time with family before we head back to Colorado. So just a little bit of a different location. Hopefully the sound and the audio will be okay. I was gonna do my grandma's marathon recap. So let's get started. I'll do like a little bit of a recap for those of you who are maybe kind of just listening in. Um I've been I'd been training for grandma's marathon since about March of this of this year. Grandma's Marathon was on June 20th. So the goal heading in when I started training back in March was to get um like a marathon time of about 255 to about 258, which would have been a PR for me. Um, I was really excited excited and I had a lot of expectations when I started training back in March. I knew that I was capable of this goal, but I would have to get kind of everything right. You know, everything would have to go pretty smoothly throughout the training cycle in order for me to accomplish that goal. And I really do enjoy the process of training. So, you know, for me, the the race is sometimes the more anxiety-producing thing. You know, sometimes um it's you know, you work for this one day, but it's the whole process of training you really have to enjoy to be able to make this work. And, you know, truly I do enjoy the process. So, you know, back in March I was excited. I was excited to start marathon training. I was excited, kind of really thinking a lot about my training plan and trying to build a training plan that I think would be a really good one for my goal. And um, unfortunately, this particular race didn't end up going as I had planned, which for anybody who runs marathons will know that the marathon is a tough race in this sense, especially when you're trying to have a goal time or a Boston qualifier or some sort of goal where obviously time might be the outcome you're looking for. It's it's sometimes really hard. You know, going into the race, there are so many different scenarios, and there's a pretty possible, not a high possibility, but some possibility there that something will not have come together correctly, and you may not have the race you were hoping to have. And that's kind of unfortunately what happened in this case. But it re but this race has really prompted a lot of reflection for me. So that's kind of what I'm gonna be chatting mostly about today, is kind of what happened before the race, the story of the race itself, kind of how it went, and then some of the things that I've been reflecting on since running the race and kind of what is gonna be happening for me moving forward. So some of the things that were happening before the race, in case or recapping that in case people forgot or haven't listened in and they just want to kind of hear how it went. I'll just recap a little bit, but uh things were actually going very, very well for me. I was feeling super great, like super fit, like having some really good workouts up until probably about it's probably about April 22nd, 21st, 22nd around there is when I had um got I got really sick with the flu. So you can go back to that setback episode if you want like the full details on what happened, but essentially it just got me really bad. And I've had in illnesses in the past on marathon training that maybe took me out for a couple days, or I had to reduce my training for like a week, or you know, take a few days off, have a reduced training for a week. But this one took me out. I don't think I really was able to solidly train for like 10 days. I had one day I tried to run and it went terribly, kind of made my illness worse. And so there was probably about 10 days I really wasn't able to run, or it was at least seven or eight, and then a couple of really easy days. So really almost two full weeks of hardly any training. And then as I was trying to get back into it, it was just really hard. I struggled for another week or two just trying to get back into the training. And so this is about seven or eight weeks out, or I kind of got sick, eight or nine weeks out, and it lasted a couple weeks. So I was kind of coming back into fitness with only six weeks to go, which if you, you know, are building up to a marathon, that leaves just a small amount of time to try to regain fitness and maybe even gain a little bit more fitness before having to kind of go into the taper. So that really threw me off. And, you know, kind of going back into it and kind of thinking about it. Um, it really was hard because a lot of the workouts after being sick didn't really go super well. And I kept thinking to myself, okay, I'm going to regain my fitness. I'm gonna start to feel really good again. It's just gonna have it's gonna come together for me. And it really didn't start to feel like maybe I was having a good workout until like the last long run. There was like a couple workouts there. Well, the last long run I did, the last 20 miler, which was like three weeks before the race, I did have a really good day that day. It was still a little bit of a struggle, but I felt really pretty good. And that gave me a little bit of confidence. I thought, okay, here we go. Maybe this is what I need to be able to have that race that I want to have. A lot of the running I did before that, you know, there was some good days and some bad days, but nothing really felt phenomenal. I was having some issues just recovering from workouts. I was having issues um just in general with my heart rate kind of being more elevated than it probably should have been for some of the workouts. And so there wasn't any sort of solid, like, wow, this is I'm in great shape, or wow, I'm in real like the best shape of my life to have a great marathon. So that itself was kind of concerning. Um, the timing of the illness wasn't great. There was some obviously physical mental challenges just trying to come back. I'm not sure as I'm kind of looking back and analyzing everything along with my training, what went well, what didn't go well. I think that was a major turning point for me. I can't say that that for sure was the reason why the race went the way it was, but it may have been part of it. So sometimes the hardest part, just kind of thinking about the illness, isn't necessarily the illness itself. It's just maybe adjusting the expectations afterwards. It's hard to say. But maybe with some of so many of those workouts being a struggle, perhaps at that point I should have adjusted my expectation for the race instead of kind of trying to push forward and continue to like think that, okay, this is gonna be the goal I'm gonna have. I think in retrospect, probably looking at some of those workouts, and you know, if I'd had potentially a coach or something, this is maybe what they would have done. If I were coaching an athlete and I were kind of seeing them struggle like that, I probably would have had that conversation of, yeah, you know, your expectation, you may not meet that because you aren't you're struggling and you're, you know, you're just fitness isn't coming back like it should. After being ill, let's reframe the goal a little bit. I was just reading so many things, like, does fitness come back after illness? Like I was really trying to almost have that like bias of there's like a name for it, but it's kind of where you want to find information to kind of confirm what you want to believe. And I think in some ways I was kind of doing that of okay, what do I need something to kind of tell me I'm gonna be okay? I need to find information online or elsewhere that's gonna tell me I'm going to be able to continue training and have my goal accomplished. And if there was any information out there that was telling me, hey, it's gonna take a lot longer to recover from this, you may have to adjust your goals. I wasn't really wanting to pay attention to that. It's I think confirmation bias is maybe the name or the term. And I was totally kind of doing that now, looking back, like trying to find anything that would confirm that, yeah, the illness wasn't gonna set me back as much as as much as it maybe had. And I wish I'd kind of consider that a little more and really thought about okay, do I need to adjust my goal? Maybe I can run this one and just kind of have the goal adjusted and be okay with that, heading into it a little bit more. Um, but I'll talk a little bit more about the pre-race, anyways, because there may have been some intuitions of that going into it anyway. At this point, kind of looking back, I'm thinking, yeah, maybe I should have been able to see what was going on, and that is where I think having a coach can be helpful. Like I have so much knowledge about training and recovery and nutrition and all of those things. I mean, the nutrition especially were going really well. The the plan was there, but I wasn't executing like I should have in many of those workouts, and I think that was causing issues, you know, but I wasn't seeing it because I was wanting to believe I was gonna be okay. And I think maybe that's the role of the coach, to be like, hey, you know, maybe this isn't going to go the way you wanted it to when you signed up. Let's think about your goals and maybe come to some sort of, I don't know, adjustment on that. Or, you know, if you have a great day, maybe you could do that, but let's be realistic in the goal that you're wanting to achieve. And so I think that would have been more helpful for me to have that. I think that's where trying to be self-coached is it's one of the problems I think with self-coaching is sometimes we are not able to have that sort of subjectively looking at, you know, when you're when I'm coaching someone, I'm able to see what maybe they aren't able to see. But for myself, I'm I'm just like almost anyone else. Sometimes I am not able to see what I need to see because I want from you know, because I'm wanting the outcome for myself. Um, if that makes sense. So I just I think that's kind of one thing looking back, I I'm wondering if that was part of it. And then, okay, so the other thing here is the travel that I had before the race. So I signed up for grandma's back in October, and around that same time, my own uncle was planning to do a family reunion in June. And so after signing up, I get this confirmation that we're gonna do this family reunion in New York, um, the finger lake area of Skinny Atlas, New York. And so that was gonna be around the 5th through the 7th of June. Well, grandma's was the 20th, and so I'm like, well, can I kind of fit both in? How am I gonna do this? Well, I decided then to do the reunion and then spend some time with with my mom in Vermont because if I'm gonna be in the East Coast, it only makes sense to be able to be there too. So the it was just this convoluted travel scheme of like the whole family going to New York, renting a car, going to Skinyatlas, then driving to Vermont. My husband flew back to Colorado, and then I was with my son and my mom for nine days roughly, which was great. Um, but you know, without my husband there, it was a little challenging with my son and trying to get other stuff done and trying to continue training, and my mom was helping, and so there was a lot of great things, and there was some challenges. Then my husband drove to Minnesota with the car, was gonna meet us in Minneapolis, and so we were supposed to fly in a minute in Minneapolis and then stay there and then go to the race. Well, I made a pretty big mistake leaving for the airport, and I just feel stupid now, kind of just like I've been traveling pretty much my whole life. I mean, a lot of travel, and so this is just like maybe a rookie mistake that I made or something. I don't know, I don't know what I was thinking, but we left a little bit too with not enough time to spare. So we basically got to the airport and I'm thinking, oh, it'll be easy, I'll just check the bag, and then we'll be able to go through security. I I had only it was only me and my son, so honestly, he's just a lot of energy, and I didn't want to be sitting there for an hour waiting for the flight to board, which is probably what I should have done. But I get there and there's this long line to check the bag. There wasn't enough people working, and by the time I get to the bag counter, they were like, it's too late. You need to be have your luggage here 45 minutes before, and now it's you know, I don't know, 30 minutes because I cut it too close. So now I have this big bag full of my stuff and I can't check it. So I'm freaking out. I mean, this was extremely stressful, and like I said, like a complete rookie mistake. I should have gotten there plenty of time, you know, not been stressed. Yes, I would have had to sit there with my son, you know, running around and being crazy, waiting for the airplane, but that would have been far less stressful than what I had to do. So I had to call my mom. She had to drive all the way back because she dropped us off. Luckily, she doesn't live terribly far, but it's like 20, 25 minutes. So she has to drive all the way back. Meantime, I'm shoving everything I can figure out for the race and things I think that we're gonna need into our carry-on backpacks. And so she comes, I'm stressing, I'm shoving things, and I hand her the bag with all the other stuff in it, and um, I grab my son and we go through the airport security, and I'm like, we're late, like it's already gonna be done boarding. But luckily, the flight was delayed. It I mean, we had like a guardian angel looking out for us. So we running through the airport, I was so stressed. I went to the wrong um gate and then had to run across and find and go to the other gate because they had changed it, and it was so stressful. We were the one of the last people to board the flight, and but we got on the flight, and so I mean, the stress level uh looking back at my garment was like a hundred. I mean, very rarely does my stress level ever go to like a hundred on the little chart. It was so high during that time. I mean, I was so stressed, and then we get on the flight, and I'm like looking through my bag, like, okay, what did I get? What did I miss? I mean, I luckily grabbed everything I needed for the race, but not a whole lot. And so we're on the flight. I at least made the flight with my son. We make it to Minneapolis eventually, because it was a little bit of delay. Luckily, I guess in this case, there was a little bit of a storm and some rain, heavy rain. So the flight didn't take off right away. Then we get to Minneapolis and my husband picks us up, and then we go to Target and buy a bunch of stuff. But the alternative would have been that we would have missed the flight and I would have had to pay $500 a ticket for first class tickets, was all they had for the next flight, which it would have been later that day or the next day. I mean, that itself would have probably I would have probably had to change my race plans anyways, because it would have been so stressful, and then I would have been out so much money. And so I don't know what I was thinking. I will probably never make that mistake again. I mean, I've sometimes made mistakes in flying, that was a first for me, but we live and we learn, and so luckily we made it. I bought clothes and stuff for the rest of our trip. Luckily, it's all stuff I can use. It did cost me about $300 of stuff, but at least it's things we'll use, clothes and the toiletries and things like that that we need. Um, and we were able to make it to Duluth and we were able to get my packet, but unfortunately with the stress that happened with the flying, I ended up not sleeping that well. And part of that is just I'm super hardened myself. I think I woke, fell asleep, you know, we tried to go to sleep, and I was like, okay, I'm gonna take my sleeping pill, my not pills, but my sleeping supplements, and I'm gonna try to really do a good job to sleep. But I woke up like two or three hours after I fell asleep, and I was just like, my mind wouldn't shut down. And that's that's tends to be what happens when I get stressed. I just my body doesn't cope with it. I don't cope with it well mentally. Um, you know, despite kind of doing everything I could to sort of calm myself down. It's just my mind wasn't shutting down. So I slept not very good at all. And I'm like, this is the most important night. This is what happened to me last time. I didn't sleep well, you know. Um, but I was trying not to let it stress me out. I'm like, oh, sleep while we're driving to Duluth or I'll rest and I'll rest when I can because we had to drive to Duluth to get the packet, and then we actually stayed. So the race starts in Twin Harbor or two harbors, and we stayed about an hour up the road at Lutzen, which is like a ski area. It was very nice. Very was the only place originally we were supposed to camp, and then my mother-in-law got this Airbnb, and I'm like, well, I'd rather stay in a bed than in a tent in a rooftop tent. So decided to stay there and just drive to two harbors to the race start. We went there to the Duluth and went there, had dinner. Again, it's just hard, you know, waking up at 4 30. The mind is going now because I'm anxious about the race. So didn't sleep great. Wasn't as bad as the night before the Vermont City marathon, where I only got two hours, but now I'm thinking like six hours and five hours isn't great. Two poor nights of sleep. So that's probably not helping. Um, but still, I mean, I was optimistic. I um my carb load was okay. I think had I not had the travel, I think, you know, in retrospect, again, you know, it's always thinking back what could I have done differently. But generally when I'm doing a race that I'm really wanting to focus on, I wouldn't have done all this travel. In fact, I probably would have come to Minnesota back in earlier in the week, like Tuesday or Wednesday, stayed, like not had the travel stress of flying, because maybe we would have drove, you know, drove our car here, or maybe we would have flyed but flown in but come in a little earlier, and maybe we would have had a few more days like in Walker with family and then gone to the race, so it would have been a little more relaxed. Um, but that's but just with everything else that we'd planned, that's just not the way it worked out. So, you know, I had two weeks also ahead of time without with being at sea level, so it's possible I lost some of my fitness for altitude, even though I try to do the heat training. You know, who knows? Was that helpful? I don't know. You know, now I'm thinking, oh, that might have been a waste of my time, but it's hard again to kind of say um what factors were influencing what and what worked and what didn't and why things went the way they did. So I'm trying to do my carb loading. That's the other thing about the travel that was hard. Is the day that I had all that crap happen, I had a bunch of food and things in my bag with the travel, and then I had to leave a lot of that stuff with my mom. So I'm I think probably on Wednesday I probably got like three, three hundred and fifty grams of carb. Same with Thursday, and then Friday, I probably did get close to 400, which is closer to my goal, because I was logging it all in chronometer, but I was kind of hoping to get a little bit more than that, but it was still I mean, it's still a good amount of carb. Could it have gone better? Could I have been a little bit more diligent about the carbs? I I don't yes, probably. Um, I was definitely trying to hydrate. Could m hydration have been a pat a factor, maybe. Um, but I definitely was trying, I think like with the travel stress, I didn't hydrate well on Thursday. And so that could have. I tried really hard to hydrate on Friday, but who knows? It could have influenced it. Um, but that you know went okay. Not perfect perfect. But we get to the race morning, I get everything I need, I put everything I need on, I have my fuel, I bought a new race belt because I left that behind. Um, I got all my fuel in there. I, you know, have everything ready. We get there on time. Um, you know, trying to go to the bathroom, that was the other thing, is there's just never enough porter potties ever. And so I go to the bathroom, I get there, and then I'm like, okay, 30 minutes before I try to do a little jogging just to kind of warm up my body real slow, stretching. Like, okay, I gotta go to the bathroom again. Well, the lines are really long at this point, and I couldn't make it to the porter potty by the time the race started, so I had to make this decision decision to leave the porter potty line. Well, by the time I tried to get my corral, it was like packed to the brim of people. So I wasn't even able to really get with the time I wanted to be. So I didn't that obviously didn't go like it should have. I was, I mean, again, I just feel like never are there any enough porter potties. I think the only race I've ever had that really good was at Gum, New York City, where they had they had that down really well. But I've never been to a race, especially some of those bigger ones where it's like slightly bigger. Like Vermont City was an issue. This race was an issue with porter potties, just not enough. They really need to try to have more if they can. I mean, it never hurts to have more. But anyway, so I'm rushing to get to the start. You know, I'm like, okay, well, I'll make up time, you know, once I get there. So, but I feel pretty good. I feel fairly calm, kind of ready to race. But it's kind of backing up a little bit with all the travel stress. But even before that, like even while I was spending time in Vermont, I was starting to have not so much, it wasn't even self-doubt. It was just more like, okay, what am I? I know I want to try to get this goal, but what happens if I don't? You know, can I be okay with not? And I think I was kind of coming to this piece a little bit with it. Like, okay, if this doesn't go the way I want, you know, I've still making it to the start line, you know, finishing. And having a race that making to the start lane, finishing, and just having a race I can be proud of, even if it's not my goal, you know, that could be good enough. I can be okay with that. And I think also I was though starting to have as we were, you know, I was having this travel stress and you're just kind of thinking, gosh, I don't know how much longer I'm willing to kind of suffer in a in a way, because when we have a marathon, it's a bit of suffering. You're 26 miles as fast as you can run is going to have a lot of discomfort. And I'm like, you know, what can I just be happy with 259.02? Two, you know, and one was last year when I was 42. Like, that's a pretty good accomplishment. I'm doing pretty good. Like, what does it really mean to have a 255? You know, I'm never gonna make the Olympic, you know, trial time at this point. Might have been able to do that when I was younger when it was like a 247 standard, the time back when I was in my 20s. Um, but now they've moved it. It's so hard to do, you know, to get that time. I'm just not going to be able to accomplish that. Like, what is it that, you know, is so important to get this particular time? You know, I'm putting so much work into this, and then to be to run and all of the pro the things that happened in marathon, all of the, you know, temperature, like how you train, having it all come together perfectly. Like, how many more times am I willing to fight for this if this doesn't go the way I want? So I'm already kind of having these thoughts. So going into race morning, I was kind of thinking the same thing though. Like it was like, and sometimes that's really hard when you're questioning your motivation before the race, you're starting to think about why you're chasing a goal, like thinking about how much the discomfort is will you're willing to of the discomfort you're willing to endure. It's really hard sometimes to differentiate between is this kind of like intuitive, like, okay, is this some sort of like my mind and my body are trying to tell me something and you listen? Or is this just fear and self-doubt and that sort of succumbing to, well, I could just take it easier and then it wouldn't hurt so bad, you know, because that's happened to me. I've had those thoughts before as well, where I'm like, okay, I could just take it easy. I don't have to run this hard. I could just go out and enjoy myself. And I think that's some of that, you know, fear and self-doubt creeping in. And so sometimes it's hard to differentiate between them. Like, is this just my mind trying to pr play tricks on me, or is this something I really need to listen to? And this time I was kind of thinking, well, this is a I just feel a little different about this than I have in the past. But what is the, you know, what is wisdom versus fear? Like, it's common, you know, like I said, to have these thoughts. It's just the body's way of sometimes protecting us from what we know is going to happen. And I think it's sometimes hard to know. Like, what do I do in those situations? Do I like listen to it or do I push through anyway? And I think in most cases, I would tell an athlete too, hey, you know, that's just your mind playing tricks on you. Just go out. Once you're in it, you'll you'll be able to keep going, you'll be able to fight, but don't give up, you know, don't give up before it even starts. It's probably what I would tell someone. So that's kind of the way I approached it. But now looking back, I kind of wonder if it was just that intuition like I said I had of like, oh my gosh, maybe I should have listened to the training wasn't going well. I maybe need to adjust my goal. Was this should I have been listening to that sort of intuition or what is it? You know, is my body telling me something something? Did the travel stress? Was it some poor sleep? Was this, you know, is this factoring in? What's going on? Or is it really just lack of fitness from my setback, like I said? So it's hard sometimes to kind of figure out those thoughts and emotions and what is really happening and that mental side of things can be such a struggle. Um, and that's often athletes will question goals before races because it's common. Um, and like I said, most of the time I would tell someone to just go out and start the race like you were intending to. And if you get out there and it's not working out, you can adjust. And so that's just kind of how I approach this. And just it's just distinguishing those nerves from genuine concerns, you know, of about an athlete's fitness or whether their goal is appropriate is kind of hard sometimes. Um, but I do think it's important to understand and reiterate your why before you get to the starting line, beyond that finished time or whatever, it's it's kind of like that deeper why of if all of your goal is just all about a time or some sort of qualifying standard, that kind of takes the joy out of it, and then it's not so fun anymore. And so, you know, I think that's part of my problem a little bit is like as much as I was trying, I was finding joy in training, but as but when it came to like the actual race, I think maybe I was missing that a little bit. And really kind of this experience has made me think a little bit more about my why and what am I doing the this for because I'm not making money with it and I'm not gonna, you know, make it to the Olympic trials or something like that. Um, so you know, I think that I would a takeaway I would have is really thinking about when you have a goal that's time-based or outcome-based, to also really consider your why. Like, why is that so important to you and what happens if you don't get it, or can you still find a joy and happiness in the outcome? Because if not getting that goal and you feel like you're a failure or you feel like you haven't accomplished what you set out to accomplish and you know you're upset with it, then I I kind of think that's not good either. And so I'll talk about kind of where I was with this marathon. But um, I just think, you know, I was in that state of grappling with what would happen if I didn't have my time goal and kind of what was I doing there to begin with. I'm kind of going back to that. I think part of me was uh differentiating between a why, like a true, like deep meaning. Like I'm doing this because I want to show my son that I can do something hard and accomplish this goal, or I can, or I'm doing it for myself so I can show that age is just a number or something like, I don't know, just a little bit more of a why. But I also was wondering, I mean, as I'm thinking about it, is it because I want to impress somebody? Is it because I want to show everyone I'm a legit runner? Like I'm I'm like a legitly like competitive runner. I can run 259 isn't good enough. It's just under three. Maybe I can run faster and I would look more legit. Or would people take me more seriously as a coach or as a sports dietitian if I've run a marathon faster? Oh, why couldn't I maybe be satisfied with what I've already accomplished with the marathon? What if I'm never able to get that goal? Could I be satisfied with what I've already achieved? And so those are all things I think I've we're thinking about before the race and kind of more so like in this process after the race and kind of while I was running in some cases. Um, so here we go. So I'm gonna get started as a recap. So we get started, the race goes off, I am running at my goal pace. I'm running a little faster. I'm trying to catch up to like I get to the 310 group because I was behind. I've I find the 3-5 group. Of course, now I haven't had the chance to go to the porter potty, so I have to pee really bad. So I finally get like maybe three or four or five miles in. I'm like, I have to pee. Um, like I need to stop and just pee really quick because otherwise I'm gonna pee my pants and I've got so many more miles to go, it's gonna be very uncomfortable. Again, you know, wishing I had had a chance to go to the bathroom, but I jumped and there was a couple porter pies just right along the side. I luckily they weren't being used, so I jump in one, pee. I mean, maybe took me 20 seconds. I just really went fast, jumped out, you know, started running, adjusting myself, kind of got back back to the three four five group, and then kind of ran up to the three-hour group. And so I was with the three-hour group, and I'm just kind of like, you know what? I don't know. This is mile five, six, maybe. I'm kind of with this three-hour group. I'm trying to stop taking it at the aid stations and slow down and taking as many fluids as I could. Ice just it's a cool day, so it was a beautiful day, but I knew like hydration was going to be important, so I would slow down a little bit, take in stuff, catch up to the three-hour group, but I could never never felt really good or confident to go faster than that. And I'm like, okay, maybe I'll just stay here for a bit. And if I feel better later on, I'll go faster. Well, kind of turns out that by like mile 10 to 12, I'm like starting to mentally struggle. It was kind of like, oh, this isn't working out so well. I am struggling quite a bit mentally and physically. I'm starting to feel it a little bit. But you know, you go through bouts in a marathon where you kind of go through where you're uncomfortable and then you feel good again. So I'm like, okay, I'm smooth, I'm not breathing hard. My heart rate was okay. So I'm like, okay, maybe I'll feel better. But mile halfway point, I'm like, I don't know, this isn't this is just not going well. Like I'm I can already feel it. My body was starting to hurt. I was having some hip lexer pain and some hamstring pain. You know, maybe it was the shoes. I probably, again, I tried I tried these new shoes, which felt great in some of my workouts, but I never wore them past, you know, on a long run because they were super shoes, these Cielo um ho or um it's hoka, I think. The shoes felt great, but in retrospect, I probably should have worn them for a long run. And then if I needed to get a new pair of them for the race and then had them worn in a little bit, knowing that I could make it that I don't know, like, or I should have just done what I've always done for the past two marathons and got the ultra-carbon plated shoes because those worked for me before. And why do I change things? You know, sometimes even when we change things and we wear them a bit before the race, it's hard to always know what's gonna happen in a 26-mile race. So I'm already starting to experience a little discomfort. I'm mentally struggling a little bit. At mile 14, I see my husband and he's cheering for me, and I'm run over and I'm like, just really quick, I'm like, you know, I'm struggling a little bit. I'm we're gonna see what I can do, but I'm not sure. Like this is I might just have to take it down a notch and kind of see if I can recover a little bit because I'm struggling. And so, you know, I was starting to acknowledge that maybe things weren't going as smoothly, things weren't feeling as good as they should have that early in the race. And it was starting to hurt already and struggling mentally, which isn't good. But I tried really hard to hang on because you know, like I said, like things can change quickly and you can start to feel good and you go through ups and downs through a marathon, it's common. But my miles in 16, 16 to 18, I started to realize that you know, I was slipping, I was slipping behind the three-hour pace group. I began to realize that my goal was slipping away. Um, I was trying to salvage the race a little bit, thinking, okay, maybe I can hang on under 310. I was running a 7 to 730 pace, slowing down, and I was looking at my watch and I'm like, man, my heart rate is not recovering very well. So it's staying. So at the through the first 13 miles, it was probably 165 to 170. As I slowed down, it wasn't going below 165. It was like 163 to 167. And I'm thinking, you know, at that pace, it should be slowing down, it should be coming down a little bit more. Um, it's not really recovering very well, and I'm starting to slow. And so I'm like, okay, it's not a good sign. You know, again, it was at fitness, you know, I have this Hashimoto's autoimmune disease. I'm like worrying about my heart rate. Though when I first was diagnosed, the reason I was diagnosed is because I actually had symptoms of high that hyper thyroid, which came with high heart rate. So I'm thinking, oh gosh, like, you know, I'm worried about my heart rate. Um, so I'm knowing at this point, if my heart rate's not recovering at this lower pace, it's it's not going to recover very well. Like I'm the I might be in, this might be where I'm at. So I'm at this 730 pace for a while. My heart rate's still elevated. Um, you know, the marathons expose is a great way of exposing weaknesses. Like you can power your way through maybe like a 10K or half marathon, but marathons really expose weaknesses. And I think there was probably some fitness limitations that were becoming apparent at this point with the illness I had or whatnot or other things. Like maybe I didn't taper correctly. Maybe I pushed too hard after the fillness, and I shouldn't have pushed so hard to get my mileage back up. Again, you know, that instead of adjusting my goals, I was just so hellbent on this time goal that I didn't sort of listen to my body as much as I should have. And I was taking longer to recover. I should have probably been like, okay, at this point I need to change my goal. But again, that's all said in retrospect. There's probably something that was being exposed there in terms of my fitness. And the body just tells the truth. There, whatever didn't go well or whatever things didn't come together by that point in the race, usually between mile 18 and 20, that's gonna be very apparent. And that's kind of what happened to me. With the marathon, there's just no way at that point you can compensate for fitness or durability or all those things that you need to get through 26, you know, uh as fast as you can. You know, you something's gonna slow you down, something's gonna expose your weaknesses, and or your weaknesses are gonna be exposed. So by the time I got to mile 20, I'm a hurting unit. And this is where the battle kind of begins. It's like that, and this is typical, this is always where the battle begins for the marathon. But for me in this race, it wasn't so much about hanging on to like in past races, like hanging on to dear life as fast as I can go to that pace of like, okay, I've got to hit this pace to get my goal and I gotta stay on this pace. It was like I knew the pace, I knew the goal, original goal was out the window. Now it was a battle to just finish the race. And I'm I am not doing good at this point. Like, I'm hurting and I'm trying to maintain like at least under eight-minute mile as best I can. At the aid stations, you know, I'm slowing way down to get as much fluids as I can. I'm just kind of trying to survive. And there's at least a couple points where I see this like medical aid station or medical tent drop out, and I'm thinking, seriously, like this doesn't usually happen, but I'm seriously like going through my mind, what would happen if I drop out? People probably wouldn't blame me. You know, it happens sometimes, those types of thoughts. And I'm like, no, because if I don't finish, I don't get the finisher's medal, and I don't get the t-shirt. And then I came all this way for nothing, you know. I'm if unless I'm like dying or something really bad, I mean, something really bad is happening, like I'm gonna have an injury that's gonna cost me months to recover from or some sort of medical emergency. I'm gonna finish this thing. And so it just became each mile was like a it was like sort of that saying, like the mile you're in. I felt like each mile was forever. I'm just trying to make it and just thinking, looking at my watch, okay, where are we at? We're at mile 21, okay, five miles to go, which is a lot. And then 22, okay, four miles to go, I can do it. 23, I'm just hanging on. I'm just running. At this point, I'm like struggling even at an eight-minute pace. I mean, I really was struggling. The physical toll is trying to become a bit overwhelming, and I was just, I was just not not doing great. Um, and so yeah, I was, I think at that point it was just this soul focus on getting to the finish line, getting my medal in my shirt, how I would feel afterwards just finishing the race. It was like I'm gonna feel so much better just finishing this thing than dropping out and kind of giving up because I don't want to be someone that just gives up. I want to make sure I finish. Um, I was thinking about what I'm training and planning that went in the race and my son again, and just sort of helping him learn that in this case, he wasn't gonna care if I reached my time goal or whatever. I mean, he for him, just having, you know, oh, I finished the marathon, you know, that's a big thing. Thinking about those things. And that's kind of what what got me there from my goal change from a PR to kind of survival of like just trying to stay as quickly as I could and salvage my race the best I can to simply just finishing the thing. You know, so it kind of went from one two, as I kind of went through the stages of the race, it kind of changed that goal changed. And I think that's the important thing to remember is just the power of adjusting your goal rather than abandoning them. And in certain instances, you're better, it might be better to drop out, like I said, if there's a severe injury or medical emergency. But if you if you have the ability to finish, you will learn so much more about yourself just finishing the race, even if you're in a lot of discomfort than dropping out, you know. So something to to consider because I think a lot of people are saying, you know, kind of have that, I've got this goal in mind, I want to have this time or this qualifying, and and then they sort of realize that's not happening and it's like, oh, I'm just gonna drop out. What's the point? You know, and I think unless you think you can drop out and then maybe sign up for another one easily, you know, and and you sit salvage some of that additional wear and tear on your body, maybe, but in this case, I don't have that opportunity. I'm not gonna be able to sign up for another one in another eight weeks. It's summertime, there's not much out there. I don't have a lot of additional money after all this travel to travel somewhere again. So I've just got to finish this thing. And so crossing the line, you know, I finally get there, I see the finish line. I I mean, there's a video of me on my Instagram that just like I was not moving like I normally do. I look like I'm in pain. I look like I've never looked really in a race. It was kind of hard to see. But you can see I'm like determined. I'm going to get to the finish line. And I do, I cross and I'm feeling a little unsure. Like my fueling, I didn't even mention that, but my fueling went okay up until about the end. When I hit about 18 to 20, I was kind of hitting my uh targets for the uh gels, and I was doing some gummies, um, sour patch gummies, and I was taking in my chewable tablets. I think pretty much I was doing pretty well until I got to that last bit, and I my stun I just not it just some stuff wasn't going on. It just wasn't right. There's something kind of happening with my body and the heart rate being I just it yeah, I was just survival. And I was trying to take in a gel if I could, and it just the whole fueling plan kind of went out the window a little bit at that point. Um, probably also because I knew I wasn't gonna hit my goal. I was just sort of trying to survive, and so I was taking fluids and lot, like lots of power aid and trying to take in gels and a few things as I could, but I don't know how much carbs per hour because it was like pretty good the first few hours, and then it wasn't so good because I was surviving. Um, but I cross the finish line, I start crying, I'm not doing very well physically, a lot of emotion, but I kind of make eventually kind of collect myself, make it to get my medal and my t-shirt. Um, but I wasn't exactly crying because I was disappointed, and I wasn't really sad. I think I was just relieved and I was like proud I finished. It was like I did this. It was that was really hard. Like this was hard. And I finished and I was relieved it was done. Um, and I just didn't have anything left. I was seriously done. I don't know if I could have kept going much past that point, to be honest. Um, so what did I learn from that? I think success doesn't always look like a PR. You know, sometimes success is refusing to quit um when you the going gets tough and learning to reframe kind of your thoughts about things. So when I finished a race, actually today or like you know, recently, I kind of looked at what I'd, you know, what I'd accomplished so far, but also like this race itself, because it wasn't as though my time was bad, and there's still a lot of good things, you know. So I think my time was 313.58 or something like that, which is my worst marathon time was a 324, which was the when I'd overtrained for the California International Marathon in that race. Um there's I know why it didn't go well. So um, and I don't think it was over-training for this one that necessarily got me, but I suppose it could have just all those same signs of overtraining that happened before that race. Well, didn't happen before this race. I was actually feeling quite good. So I don't think it was that, but it was definitely not my best time, but you know, it was a pretty good time. Um my first marathon was like a 310, my first ever marathon. So I'm like, you know, this I've kind of just kind of been in this 229 to 324, like in that range. So I guess I have a lot of staying power in that sort of marathon time range, but for some reason I'm struggling to get faster than that. And so um, you know, maybe that's just where I'm going to be and where I'm supposed to be, especially at 43. But um, I was looking back and I said, I qualified for Boston, and so this will be my 11th time qualifying. Um, every race I've done, I've qualified, even that 324, which was kind of close, I think, to the qualifying standard. I think because I was like 29, but I'm not and then they changed it so it's faster. So anyway, but every time, so I still qualified for Boston. I'm not planning to run Boston because that's a lot of effort to get there, and I've done it once. I may do it sometime again, but I mean, that's lucky. Some people spend years trying to qualify. For Boston. So I cannot be upset about that. I placed 958th out of 9,602, which puts me about top 10% of everybody in the race. And I was 17th out of 537 in my age group. So although I would have had liked to have been better than that one, I think I would have been capable of being like top 10 in my age group at least with my school time. I think that's pretty damn dang good. I'm not going to complain. It helps to keep things in perspective like that. Like it wasn't as though I totally miserably failed. I did really well. And yes, the time slowed significantly. That does show some weaknesses, but I was able to hang in there and tough it out. And I might have walked a little through some of the aid stations and there was one hill that I had to kind of power walk up a little bit because I was hurting so bad. But I didn't walk very much. I ran most of the whole thing at the end. Like there's a lot to be proud of there. Um so what this has kind of taught me is like perfect races are fun, but they feel good and they're great. But perfect races happen not every time. There's lots of times we struggle and have bad races. And so the difficult races reveal sometimes our character and weaknesses, and that can be kind of hard to face. Like, yeah, I didn't get it right, you know, something didn't go right in my training or the lead up. I didn't get something right. And maybe I wasn't actually adjusting my goals like I should have post setback, whatever it was. Um, but that was revealed to me. But there's a lot of value in struggling. You go, we grow through adversity, we build resilience, we learn about ourselves and what we're capable of when these things happen. When we have that great race and you feel great for the whole thing, and you struggle a little bit through some discomfort, but you it all comes together in the end, those races are great, but they don't always teach us things. It's really those races that we struggle at, I think that teach us the most. And, you know, I think that's powerful. Um even if it's a hard thing to have to deal with. Uh so you know, I think I learned something about myself and what I'm capable of when I'm really struggling. And I think it's something I'll take with me in the future as I do other races and continue to to train and perform at some level. Um, but yeah, I'm kind of moving on. You know, I think I think you know, talking now about what's kind of next, I can't say at this point, I don't think I'm going to do what I have been doing. I had success at the New York City Marathon coming back after not training for a while. Tucson was a little bit of a letdown because I had that GI bug. You know, I did really well in Vermont. I kind of was using that same sort of template of higher trying to do higher volume, like typical marathon training for this race, and it didn't go well. And maybe that's because of the training, maybe that's because of setbacks, you know, who knows? But going into the next one, if I do another one, it's not gonna be the same. First of all, I'm gonna do a total I'm gonna do it a little bit differently, the training, more of a hybrid kind of approach of like more strength training, less mileage, a little bit more cross-training, maybe of some sort, some some sort of crossfit style workouts occasionally, like some sort of mix-up of that, so it's different and not so the mileage is gonna be reduced and and trying to kind of really focus on recovery and um, you know, still having some of that fatigue, but not but balancing a little bit with other things, um, and kind of see what that where that takes me, but I'm not gonna do the same high mileage, like just trying to build, you know, trying to like, I don't know, push my body so hard as as I have, because I don't know if that's necessarily working either. And it may actually be backfiring a little bit. So if I do another one, which won't be anytime soon, I'm gonna approach it very differently and just go into it with curiosity to see what might happen if I buck the norm of ever all of this high volume, you gotta do high volume and try something just a little bit different. And, you know, I might be surprised what I'm capable of with that without totally, I don't know, just kind of being hours of training and and running. Like what would happen if I do it just a little bit differently? And, you know, then not being really outcome-oriented, like I might have some time goal or some sort of idea when I'm training of what I might be able to accomplish, but just really just kind of seeing what can happen when we do something differently. The other option is just kind of running, not really training very hard and just doing them for purely fun, you know, just kind of wouldn't it be nice to go into a marathon and like high five people as you're running by and like enjoying it, seeing the scenery, smiling, waving, you know, doing all that, like maybe even heaven forbid, you know, having drinking a beer like towards the end. I don't know, something like this like totally different way of approaching it. Doing one that's like scenic and hilly and beautiful, you know, something different. So there's no time goal at all. You're just out there enjoying. I mean, you still maybe run it fairly quickly, but not, you know, I mean, not quick, but just like, okay, 3 30, you know, that's a good time. Just go out there and sort of have like some sort of general goal, but you're just kind of running for fun. So those are two things I'm kind of considering if I ever do one, but it won't be the same as I've done. I'm gonna try something different. It's not gonna be the same. And I'm kind of letting go of the time goal for now. And maybe forever, I'll just kind of be happy with what I've achieved so far, and now things will look different for me if I do another marathon. That doesn't necessarily mean I won't try for other races. In fact, my next goal is going to be really focusing on 5K training, maybe like a fast mile, high rocks. I've actually signed up for a high rocks race in Denver in November, which is totally out of my wheelhouse. I'm so excited to just do something totally different and not have any idea of time goals or anything. It's just like gonna go do do it, train for it, obviously. Try to do the best I can train for something new, but just kind of do it, see what happens. I'm just actually very excited for that because I kind of need something just to not be the same old, same old. And so the other thing I have to think about is um my health conditions. You know, I have this autoimmune disease and things like the heart rate issues I was having and um just a few other things that have kind of gone on with some symptoms I'm having it is just making me a little bit concerned. And that's why I said I'm never gonna do the high volume training again for a marathon, because I just cannot continue to train that way. And I'm worried that the long-term health outcome or poor health outcomes, you know, yes, I could get this time goal, but is it worth some sort of long-term health problem? Another autoimmune disease, another issue, you know, something else kind of coming up that's gonna cost me even my ability to run potentially, some sort of arthritis, or you know, there's a lot like a lot of different autoimmune diseases that could totally stop me from even being able to move my body the way I want. And that scares me. Like I want to be 60, 70, 80 and still moving. And so I'm thinking a lot about the future and longevity and you know, trying to consider what that means for me and how some of my performance goals I can still pursue something, but maybe the marath pursuing that marathon time isn't one of those goals because of how hard that is on my body. So that's something. Obviously, I'm getting older. I'm just not gonna be able to that PR goal, and we have so many years I can actually even achieve that. And am I willing to keep trying? I'm not so sure. It's nice. Five Ks are nice. You can do them three weeks later, you do another one. You know, you don't want to maybe do that all year long, but you can, if you want to, I guess, just train and then you can jump in one and you know, even monthly you could do one if you want, and doesn't have the same toll on your body, but marathons, you do one and you have to recover from it, and then you have to almost like start from almost scratch, really. And you can do maybe two, three a year, but that takes a toll. And so I just think it's it's a hard one because I may only have a handful left that I could even run. And what if I did that and continue to chase this and it just didn't work out for me? What would I where would I be then? You know, would it would it be worth the chase? And I'm not so sure anymore that it is. Um, but I need a long break from the marathon either way. I won't be doing one the rest of this year. I'm not sure about next year, you know, that's hard to determine, but it will be a while. I'm gonna the longest I'll probably do is maybe a half marathon at this point. So, and then the high rocks race. So that I'm excited about. And so closing thoughts, just kind of to end this because I've been chatting and blabbing for a while, but um just some final reflection here. Marathons are never guaranteed. Simply reaching the starting line is sometimes the victory, just being able to get through all the training and help being there healthy and being able to start the race is sometimes the biggest thing, you know, to achieve when it comes to the marathon. And sometimes finishing it itself is never guaranteed and should never be taken for granted. So just getting to the finish line. So I think the call for action here for for all of you, I would say, would just be to think about the race, you know, your last race or the last marathon, and thinking about something um that it taught you, you know, that you could take into the next one. Like what are these races teaching us? What are we learning each time we race? Because there's something valuable, I think, that we learn from each experience. And um, and how is your relationship with running involved over evolved over time? Like, you know, how especially for those people who are in their 40s, like how have you evolved your training and your in your goals over time? And how do you go from time goals to maybe a different kind of goal as you realize that you can no longer achieve maybe a specific time or you don't want to anymore? Like, how do you continue to enjoy the sport and participate without, you know, having those specific types of goals, or maybe the goals change? I'm just curious, you know, I'd love to hear comments on who how people are justing their goals. And if someone has a health concern, you know, how are they managing that with like long-term health? You know, what how is that being balanced? I know I'm actually feeling quite at peace with where I'm at with this. I I'm not upset, you know, like I thought I might be, especially when I began training. If the time didn't happen, I was always worried I was gonna be upset and upset with myself or, you know, something along those lines. But I'm actually quite I feel quite at peace with where I am and what I've achieved and with how hard that race was at the end, just kind of finishing was such a big deal to me. And so I'm grateful too that I was able to maybe, you know, it was a l a lesson, and who knows, you know, if God or somebody from above was sort of giving giving me a lesson to learn between that and the travel stress. I don't know, there's a lot there. Um, I think maybe there's some learning lessons and all of that that uh it could take to kind of wonder what other people have learned from some of their marathons that they've, you know, had the rough times and and where they go with it. But anyways, I hope that helps. I really it was a long, long episode, but I am excited um to kind of see what the future holds and what I decide to do next. Like I said, I've got that high rocks race. Um really trying to really get back to some fast, some strength training and some speed, five faster 5k, see what I can do there because three miles is painful, but at least it's only usually 20 minutes or less, at least for me. So I'm excited about that and taking, I'm taking the rest of this week off. And maybe even next week uh from running, we'll see. I I might need a longer break after this one. So I'll keep you posted. But thanks a lot for listening and pay and and the whole if you've listened to all of the grandma's episodes, I really thank you for being along with me in my journey. It really means a lot to me that you listen and that you you're taking stock or or or listening and wanting to know my journey because um maybe it's helpful and maybe just this whole experience I've had and what I've had with this race is helpful for you too to think about for your own race. I don't know. I I hope it's all been helpful to uh go through this journey with me. And so I'd love to hear any of your thoughts. If you ever want to reach out to me, uh Katie at fuel to run, fuel to the number two run.com. Like just send me a message and let me know your thoughts about this race or the whole grandma's episodes and anything like I'm asking, kind of reflecting on your own race. I would just love to hear. I honestly love to kind of connect with other runners and get feedback and thoughts and you know, kind of what what other people are experienced. So please reach out if you want to. And thank you so much for again for listening. And I will see you all next the next episode. All right. Bye.