Des Moines Marathon race recap

 So, as some of you remember, the 2024 Des Moines Marathon did not go well.  It got hot, I felt sick to my stomach and couldn't take in any nutrition after mile sixteen, I went out too fast, etc., etc. I signed up for the 2025 race at the end of last year, literally referring to it as The Redemption, not to be dramatic or anything.  I ran the Fargo Marathon at the end of May and got some confidence back, running my second fastest time ever at 4:35:01. I started training for Des Moines in mid-June.

The fall racing season leading up to Des Moines included the Harvest Moon Hustle 10K in Elmwood, NE; the Monument Half-Marathon in Scottsbluff/Gering, NE; and Market to Market from Omaha to Lincoln.  My times/paces at all of them were pretty good, but not spectacular.  Also, because of other races, I wound up doing my longest run of twenty miles five weeks out from Des Moines, which wasn't ideal.  Any time anyone would ask me how I felt about Des Moines, I would preface with, "Well, I started my taper a little early, but..." My longest run is typically two-four weeks out.  I wasn't sure how that would go.

I got to the expo late Saturday afternoon. Chelsea and Brock were working the Market to Market booth, and within half an hour of getting there I'd seen like six other friends who were signed up for the half, so that was awesome.  The temperatures at the start were actually looking pretty chilly at that point and I had packed short sleeves and capris, so I decided to buy some arm sleeves at the expo. Sunday morning at the race I lined up with the 4:35 pacer and figured I would speed up if I could, hoping I could at least beat my second-best time from Fargo.  The following things then happened:

1) I got ahead of the 4:35 pace group going up a hill during the second mile and decided to just roll with it.  A few times during the first ten miles I knew I was going way too fast, like there were a couple of miles in the 9:30s, but I just decided to do what felt good and try not to think about it too much.  This strategy worked pretty well; I slowed down a little as I went, but never really "bonked"; the first ten miles were mostly in the 9-10 minute range, the second ten were in the 10-11 range, and the last six were mostly in the 11-11:30 range.  Ideally, I would want to pace a little more evenly, but I didn't have any truly terrible miles like I did at Des Moines last year, or Chicago in 2021 or Monument in 2023, so I was happy about that.

2) I crossed paths with Brock, Nick, and Mia, who were all running the half, at around mile three, I think.

3) Also at around mile three, I decided I was ready to ditch my arm sleeves.  This turned out to be a Whole Deal since I had put both my watch and my pace bracelet on over them.  Long story short, the pace bracelet had to be ripped off and got thrown in the trash at the next opportunity, and though I tucked the arm sleeves into my flip belt, I noticed at some point later that one was missing.  I'm not allowed to buy arm sleeves ever again.

4) For nutrition, I alternated between Honey Stinger chews and mini Honey Stinger waffles every four miles through mile sixteen.  Then, not long before I was supposed to have more chews at mile twenty, there was an aid station with pickles, so I had a hunk of one of those.  Then there was an aid station sponsored by the Iowa Pork Producers offering strips of bacon, so I had a bite of bacon.  Oh, also, at some point, someone along the course offered me a Jolly Rancher, which I enjoyed because it kept my mouth from getting dry for awhile.

5) The Omaha folks who had run the half were there to cheer me on at the finish.  Finish time was 4:32:05, almost three minutes faster than Fargo in May and just one minute and eleven seconds shy of my 4:30:54 PR.  So, cautiously optimistic that I may be able to PR again one day.

Not sure if there are any huge takeaways to be had, except just try not to overthink things too much, whether in training or on race day.  Both this and Fargo have been confidence-building.  I have one more race left in 2025 with the Good Life Halfsy.  In 2026, I'm looking forward to Grandma's Marathon, and looking into possibilities for fall marathons.

Fargo Marathon Race Recap

 I don't know if blogging is really a thing anymore, but I prefer this format for race recaps, so here goes.

I signed up for the Fargo Marathon somewhat on a whim last Labor Day weekend.  An ad came across Facebook, I needed a spring/summer goal race, and after doing some light research, I discovered that Fargo was less than a six-hour drive away and that hotels weren't very expensive.  I figured if I could get someone to go with me, great, but if not, oh well. 

As some of you know, I ran the Des Moines Marathon last fall and it went terrible.  I went out way too fast, fell back from the pace group I never should have been trying to keep up with in the first place at like mile nine, it got hot, I felt sick to my stomach and couldn't get down any nutrition after mile sixteen, and so on, and so on.  At one point during the later miles, I thought to myself, "Maybe I will be done with marathons.  This sucks."  Then I almost immediately thought, "Well, I already signed up for Fargo.  I'll still do that." Then before the new year I'd already signed up to do Des Moines again.  The point is, even though as recently as this past spring I told like five-ten people that I was probably going to retire from the marathon distance soon, if I ever say that to you, just ask me which ones I'm already signed up for.

My spring race season made me feel cautiously optimistic.  Last year's half-marathons both sucked (are you seeing a pattern from last year?), with the Lincoln Half happening with apparently too little recovery from the Zion 50K and the Rock Island Trail Half happening on a day that was hotter than the surface of the sun.  I set a cautious "I guess maybe under 2:05?" goal for Lincoln this year, and was happy to make it in 2:03:59.  I wound up running most of that race with my friend Anna without really having planned that in advance, and I was surprised at how much it helped keep me out of my own head.  I can get very discouraged if I get off pace and go kind of crazy trying to do math in my head ("If you run the rest of it at such-and-such pace, you can still make it in under..."), and I found I wasn't doing that and was actually having fun racing for the first time in awhile.  I was slapping people's "Tap here to power up!" signs.  Little kids would hold out their hands to give people five, and I would do it.  I finished the race happy.

As the Fargo race date approached, it started to look like temperatures would not be ideal.  The night before, watching TV in my hotel, the local weather woman cautioned that there was an air quality alert because of fires up in Canada.  "Oh, GREAT!," I probably said aloud to no one.  Regardless, I decided to stick with my original "start with the 4:35 pace group and see how it goes" plan.  My marathon PR is just under 4:31, and it seemed unlikely to be a PR day, but I figured that starting with the 4:35 group would at least keep me from going out too fast and, if I could keep up with them the whole way, get me my second-best time ever.  

Noteworthy things about the course and race, in no particular order:

1) I stuck with the pace group pretty much the whole time, and like when I ran the Lincoln Half with Anna, it kept me out of my head.  The pacers would discuss things among themselves like, "We've been going a little fast, so we need to slow down to XYZ pace," and it was really nice to just let them figure it out and go along for the ride.  They also kept it fun and gave good advice.  One woman wondered aloud at one point if she should go on ahead and they said, "Don't speed up to any pace you can't sustain the rest of the race," and I decided that was good advice, since I normally tend to bonk somewhere between miles sixteen and twenty.  There was a little going back and forth with the group at the end, but I mostly stuck with them and finished pretty much right on at 4:35:01. 

2) One of the pacers kept saying that the first half of a marathon is actually twenty miles and the last half is 6.2, so with that in mind, at mile twenty, he led us in the chorus to "Livin' on a Prayer" (Ohhhh, we're halfway there..."). In general, let me just say how much good music selections help, especially in the last miles of a marathon.  I still think back fondly on Grandma's Marathon 2022, when I heard "All I Do is Win" at mile twenty-four and just went, "Okay," and took off.  In the last miles of this one, I got perked up at mile twenty-three or twenty-four by "Party in the USA," then in the last mile by a live band playing "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" with slightly adjusted lyrics ("You have run five hundred miles...") followed by "Tubthumping" ("I get knocked down, but I get up again, you're never gonna keep me down..."). Huge pick-me-ups.

3) I stayed on top of nutrition for once in my life and got down every single thing I brought with me.

4) Best race sign went to "Leo Would Stop at 25."

5) The people of Fargo really came out for the race.  The course went through a lot of residential neighborhoods, and a lot of people were out on their lawns cheering.

6) I guess you know you're up north when you notice how many hockey nets there are in people's yards.

7) Packet pick-up the day before was at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, and there were signs all over that said, "Home of the Cobbers" or whatever.  "What the heck is a Cobber?" I wondered.  It turns out it's this mean little corn man who showed up when we ran through the Concordia College campus:

I love me a random-ass mascot.  I'm not one to stop to take pictures along the race course, but I wish I had gotten one with that guy.

8) There were a lot of turns on the course and lots of places where you crossed paths with runners who were at a different place on the course.  This was mostly fine, but there was one place where you had to run single file because you were on a narrow path with people coming from the other direction.  That part sucked.  They had plenty of volunteers directing people and did their best, but it still was frustrating and felt unsafe.  That was my only real complaint.

With eight marathons under my belt, the marathon distance still continues to humble me.  You have to be consistent in your training and realistic in your pacing, and even then, bad weather and/or a challenging course can throw all your time goals out the window.  I was really happy with my time this race, and/but am very aware of all of the things that had to come together for that to happen. Forever grateful to the Omaha run crew peeps who will jump in for a loop or three around Cunningham or Zorinsky and/or get me out on gravel roads, and to Carrie N., who listened to all of this on the phone on my drive home 😂. Special shoutout this time to the Beast Pacing team.

Next up: Cornfield Cornfield 10K

Fall goal race: Des Moines Marathon II: The Redemption