Marine Corps Marathon Recap

Let's lay the cards down on the table: I don't run races just for fun or just to finish. The overachiever in me runs every race with a goal time in mind--usually to beat my previous PR. For the Marine Corps Marathon, my first 26.2 race, I set three goals:

1. Finish in 3:40:59 to qualify for Boston.
2. Finish around 3:50.
3. Finish under 4 hours and don't walk up the last hill.

Goal 1 was ambitious and probably too idealistic. Goal 3 was my "safety" in case the first two fell through.

Pre-Race
I spent the last 2 weeks before MCM tapering and working ~14-hour days. Stressed and sleep-deprived, I resorted to downing daily shots of Emergen-C to fight off what felt like an oncoming cold. Not the best race preparation, but I comforted myself with the common saying that the marathon is 99% mental. I had trained properly so if I just believed that I could do well, then I would do well. Simple.

Race Morning
I left about 1 hour and 45 minutes to get from my home in Court House to the race start near the Pentagon. In hindsight, that was not enough time. The metro ride was crowded, the walk from the Pentagon station was much longer than I anticipated, and the porta-potty lines were long. I ran from the parking lot to the start line and squeezed into the 3:40-4:00 corral just in time to hear the cannon go off. Without so much as a minute-long rendition of the national anthem's time to process anything, my first marathon began.