Ouch

I think the title sums up quite nicely the experience I had last weekend running the Vancouver marathon.

Wow, did it hurt.  Big time.

Me running.  I am focused, hopefully not on the pain! 
Proof is courtesy of Marathon Foto

Marathons are usually a painful endeavour.  I have yet to run one without being some kind of sore, but this one, this beautiful but hilly course in Vancouver sure did a number on my legs.

Rewind just a bit and recall that I had set a very difficult time standard for myself for this race; I had hoped to run a sub 3 hour marathon.  but as my good friend Christine likes to say, hope is NOT a strategy and that certainly proved to be true in this case.  To be truthful, the level of training I needed to put in to get to this incredibly difficult standard simply did not happen the way it needed to.  Blame it on the weather, blame it on my busy schedule, blame it on whatever you will, I simply didn't make it enough of a priority for this to happen.

If I sound disappointed, I should mention that I am most certainly NOT!  I have mentioned previously that completing a 3 hour road race is a gruelling undertaking no matter which way you look at it.  Even if the time doesn't end up being quite what you expected, there is still a rainbow (usually several, actually) at the end of the race.  In this case, mine was that I managed to place first in my age category, a result that was most unexpected but welcome none the less.  And I have to say that my final time of 3:13 on a course that tough is an accomplishment that I am very pleased with. 

The bottom line is, of course, that the sun was shining, the course was beautiful and I was running and loving it.  What could possibly be disappointing about that? 

From a training and a racing perspective, for those of you that may apply this to your own running experiences, I believe I need to focus more on getting  middle distance runs completed at my marathon goal pace.  This will be the focus of my training for the next little while.  I was really quite happy with my front end speed in Vancouver, especially since I am a bit of  slow starter- the warm up I blogged about pre-race definitely helped with that.  I just didn't have the endurance I needed to hold onto the pace on that particular day...

...but I will.  I most definitely will and am already excited for what the next run may bring!

P.S. Check out the lululemon  homepage- you just may recognize someone...