Race report

I wanted so bad to have a great race. I trained well. Worked hard. Tried to eat right. But today just wasn't my day. I should have admitted this days ago. My mind was beat up and worn done. Racing any distance- really racing- was out of the question. But I wanted to be tough. I wanted to over come my emotions and fears from this past week and accomplish what I had trained my body to accomplish. Some how I thought I would be able to do it. I was just going to run. Hard. I know my body was ready. I had proven that to myself well in training. So I found myself standing at the starting line at 7:00am, my body feeling great, and mind full of hope over racing this marathon. The first mile passed easily in 6:29. About 10 seconds fast, but that should be okay. By the time I finished mile 2, I was running at a 6:43 pace. My legs felt good. My breathing was light. But something inside me was saying, "Just stop. You don't want to do this." I tried to turn that voice off for the next 6 miles. I kept telling my body to go. This is my marathon pace, I feel great. Just Go! But that darn voice wouldn't give. A piece of me was saying to stop. "Don't make yourself uncomfortable over nothing. Racing is nothing. You want to run? Great. You wan to run a marathon? That is just silly. You want to RACE a marathon. Now that is stupid of you. Just quit now while you are still feeling great." Around mile 9 I shared my thoughts with a running buddy of mine.
"I don't want it. I just can't find my desire to make my legs go right now."
"You can always recover from that," he said. Looking down at his watch he added, "We are right on pace. Just run with me and we will be under 3hours."
I ran with him for a couple of miles. But that darn voice in my head was being awfully persistent. "God, help me do this," I pleaded. "My desire to go is gone.... I want to work with all my heart in all I do for You, Father. Give me the strength to pour myself into this now. Let me be yours above mine." But I just couldn't get myself to push.
Soon after, I saw my husband. "Would you be made at me if I quite?" I asked.
"Your doing great. Just hang in there!"
So I kept going. Mile after mile I just put one foot in front of the other and ran. Every so often I would glance at my watch, see how slow I was going, take a physical inventory, realize how great my body felt and tell myself to pick it up. But it was like I had a demon on my back. Something was sucking my will to run right out of me. "GO!!" I told my body. "Just quit. You are way off pace now," some piece said to my will. But I didn't want to quit. "Yes, you do. You don't want this," I heard in my mind. I can do this. I can run hard for the last 8 miles in still finish well. "But that would be silly. You already are too far off pace to recover. Just walk off the course. Everyone has bad days. Just quit."
Some how I didn't quit. I never could make my body go, but didn't stop trying. When I saw my husband at mile 20, he gave me words to hold on to. "Go what ever pace you want. You are almost there. You can do this." I knew he was right. There was no reason for my to walk off that course. Mentally, I was having the worst run of my life. But physically I felt great. I just had to except that I was running what I was running on this day and let go of what I wanted to have happened. When I hit mile 25 I said "Go!!" On last time to my legs. Only this time I said it out loud. Actually, I said, looking at my watch as I approached the 25th mile marker, "On your mark, get set, go!" My watch read 3:08:something. I felt silly trying to get my legs going for the last 1.2 miles of this race, but I wanted to conquer my mind. So I ran. The clock read 3:15:something as I crossed the finish line. About 7 minutes for the last 1.2 miles isn't too bad. If only I could have gotten myself to run that for the whole last half! But I felt good about having crossed that finish line. Sure my time was far from where it could have been, but that made crossing that finish line much harder. Getting a DNF would have, in some ways, felt better then finishing so far off pace. Now I officially am a "3:15 marathoner"(Not that that is bad. Just... I could run so much better.) . But I didn't let that darn voice win! It could ruin my race, but it couldn't conquer me. HA!