Wow... what a difference a year can make. No boiled potatoes. No garbage sandwich. No frozen cookies. No 17 degree temps. No whining and crying. JFK was just a beauty this year.
I had no real training plan and absolutely no race plan for JFK. By the time we began the walk to the starting line in downtown Boonesboro....I had no real confidence either. Go figure. That quote about having the will to win without the will to prepare was echoing in my brain. "Hmmm....how many long runs had did you actually do?" I kept trying to remember. "Does that one in August on the Montour Trail count??" And, by the way, it wasn't a full 3 week taper....it was 20 days."
But when the gun went off, I made a pact with myself to outlaw all negative thoughts and focus only on the finish line ..."It's just 50 miles away."
We had perfect weather this year. The Appalachian Trail was beautiful. Maybe that's why I played around on it so long! By the time I began running on the C&O Canal Towpath, I was a full 36 minutes behind my time from last year. I had spent 3 hours and 24 minutes on the AT!!! "Oh, the race started?? Well, why didn't somebody tell me?" I guess that's what you get when you have no plan.
The 26 mile towpath section of the race went very well this year. I stuck with Perpetuem, water, maybe 3 Hammer Gels, and pretzels rods. I felt great. At mile 30, I did the full mental scan of all systems and figured that I was in pretty good shape, with only a 20 miler in front of me. Checked the watch and decided that if I could finish the towpath in 4:20, I might still be able to get in ahead of last year. Time to put your head down and go. Said goodbye to Stac at about mile 32 and tried to focus on running one mile at a time in 9:30 to 9:45. I was feeling good, but not extremely confident in knowing how hard I could really push without crossing that line that would send it all straight to hell. I decided to err on the conservative side. Finished up the towpath in 4:24 total running time 7:48.
I hit the asphalt still feeling good and thinking that a 1:20 for the last 8 miles was more than possible. I took off up the hill with great intentions in mind and then it happened. I had been running on the road for several minutes...at least a quarter of a mile.... and there in front of my disbelieving face was the "8 Miles To Go" sign. "What? That's not right is it? Shouldn't it be about 7.5 from here???" I said loudly to some guy who didn't care. I had made the mistake of thinking that I was at mile 42.2 when I got off the towpath....."Uh, noooo, that was 41.8. Check your race plan." Oh well, so much for winging it. I still felt good and ran the final 8.2 in around 1:24 to finish in 9:14. Jeff, who had been finished for like 3 hours (8:16), was already there. Soon after Stacy (9:32), Laura (9:33) and Kim(9:37) all came in. Tom finished (10:47) with his nephew running beside him...awesome. John (11:23) entered the gym with a huge smile and informed us that we'll need to check the finish photos because he crossed the line with Monica who was wearing pink leopord print tights.
Last year, I survived JFK. This year I felt like I was in it. I had a great experience and am enjoying the recovery week...eating turkey and pie without guilt. This could become a tradition.
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