Pre-race thoughts: Bayshore Marathon

Posted by Katie and Matt

Tomorrow Matt and I are running the Bayshore Marathon held in Traverse City, MI. We picked this particular marathon in order to run with my cousin Emily (who flew out to meet us in Santa Barbara, CA for my 2nd marathon). This race is a flat out and back race along the East Grand Traverse Bay. Weather for tomorrow looks to be chilly at the start (47F), which to me sounds REALLY COLD but Matt assures me that is "perfect running weather".

Obligatory starting line photo

My thoughts are definitely mixed for tomorrow. This training cycle has been a bit hit or miss for me. I was finishing my PhD through most of it which in retrospect was not a great idea and definitely caused me to miss a few runs. Naively I thought that training for a marathon while writing my thesis would be great...start writing, get stuck on some wording, head out for a run, and boom, brilliant idea comes to mind. In reality I just felt guilty when I was running, and stressed that I had missed too much running when I wasn't. I did manage to complete most of the long runs, and I am hoping that all that skiing we did this winter counts for some major cross training points!

As far as my goal for the race.. I would be happy with anything under 4:41 (my current best, at Santa Barbara in 2012). Last fall I finally broke 2 hours in the half-marathon distance, something I had always been close too but never quite there. For the previous Christmas, Matt had given me the gift of a personal pacer (and mp3 player) to finally break the 2 hour barrier that I had so struggled with. Best. present. ever! So based on that time, I had set my training paces to target a time of 4:10. That time is now definitely out of reach given how hard it was to hold the right paces on my long runs. Then I had taken stock and decided 4:25 would be a great goal (1 hour faster than my first ever marathon 5:25 back in 2009). Turns out I was severely anemic at the time and did not know… spoiler alert: running WITH hemoglobin (like I do now) is MUCH easier than running without (like I did in 2009). Unfortunately I think that goal might be out of reach at this point too so I've decided I will be happy with not exploding and hopefully a PR of anything.. 1 minute... 10 seconds... I'll take it! I am also really hoping to run with my cousin and best friend of 29 years Emily. We ran together the whole time in that Santa Barbara marathon in 2012, though we were both struggling with various injuries. Hopefully we are about the same pace tomorrow!

I mean how could I resist "everything good blended together"?

Everything good = espresso and vanilla iced cream!

 Traveling to Traverse City by way of the east coast means that I have been carb loading for about a whole week. First in Mass for a good friends wedding, then in NYC to see my sister (YAY BAGELS), then out to Michigan. Today we got to explore the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Seashore, which was really fun. The dunes are enormous, ~500ft max elevation. We did the "climbing dune" which is just like it sounds... you climb right up a giant sand dune and were rewarded with some amazing views. Matt had a great time log rolling down the dune on the way back.

View from the top of the Climbing Dune hike.

Nice form on the log roll!

Lake Michigan (or is this a tropical island?!)

Matt's pre-race thoughts:

I am excited to be running in a beautiful new location (although I may not agree completely with it's slogan "Most Beautiful Place in America"). The dunes and the Lake are picture perfect. We have fantastic weather lined up for the morning and will have a great cheering squad of my parents, Katie's mom, and Emily's mom out there on the course. We also have carb loaded very appropriately (see pictures below). I'm hoping those combine for a PR and a sub 3 hour marathon tomorrow. My training cycle was pretty good - life (and skiing) got in the way a bit so I did not hit the track as religiously as I had planned in the beginning of my training. I did manage to get four 20+ mile runs in - the last time I got that many long training runs in, I qualified for Boston for the first time back in 2009. My last 20 miler was at a reasonably brisk pace of my goal marathon pace + 15 seconds. I also successfully managed to fly near 10,000 miles in the last week and half and not get sick during the taper (which, despite rarely getting sick, I've managed to do for ~33% of the endurance races that I've done). All and all, I think I have about a 50% shot of pulling off my goal, which, for a Marathon, is about all you can ask for. Here we go!!!

A lunch fit for a marathoner

Official carb loading by chef Matt