Track and Field Blogs - Melissa White

Since I began running in college I have always been intrigued by the marathon. I quickly gravitated to the longer events because I enjoyed the tempo runs, long runs, and longer repeats. Since I had never run before college I tried a few different events during the indoor track season. Believe me, my 400 and 800 are pathetic. I love watching the sprinters but I knew a long time ago that those weren’t the events I would be running.

When I came out to Hansons I wanted to focus on getting my 10k and 5k times a bit faster before I moved to the marathon. However, when you are surrounded by marathoners it’s hard not to catch the marathon bug.

So, in 2006 I decided to run my first marathon. Training went great. I loved the workouts and the mileage and I was excited to run in Chicago. But, as every runner knows, things don’t always go as planned. The day before Chicago I woke up with a horrible headache and my whole body ached. A teammate and I had gotten a case of food poisoning. I tried to shake the negative feelings out of my mind and just rest as much as I could. I actually didn’t feel too bad on race morning and I hoped the adrenaline and excitement would carry me through to the finish. Well it got me to about 18 miles and then everything fell apart. The marathon is a tricky event. I don’t know if you ever stop learning things in the marathon. I spent the rest of the race in a fog and literally wanted to lie on the ground and disappear. I don’t even know how I continued to run, if you can call it that, the rest of the way. I then spent the next 2 hours in the medical tent. You would think that this would be enough to discourage me to do another marathon so quickly, but I was hoping this was a fluke. So I trained for Boston in the spring. There were a lot of good things that came out of this training. It was basically a practice round for the trials, which would be held in Boston the following year. The end result however was once again not what I was hoping for. I finished the final miles in a fog and faded to a time much slower then I had trained for. We focused on some shorter events the next fall and then got ready to go again for the trials. My training was so-so at best. I wasn’t recovering as well as I hoped from workouts and I couldn’t seem to get in a groove during workouts. Everything seemed too forced, but things started to come around the last month and I went into the trials with an all or nothing race plan. I was either going to be in the top 3 or I wasn’t. My feelings were you either make the top 3 and go to the Olympics, or you get a nice seat on your couch to watch in on TV with everyone else. So I went out over my head and tried to run faster then I was ready for, but I definitely would not give up the experience I had that day. It was awesome to be up there with the front pack, and I think for the first time I realized that we deserved to be up there. Maybe it wouldn’t be this race, but with enough time and practice we could achieve the same things.

This brings me to Chicago 2009. I can finally say I accomplished my goal for the first time in the Marathon. Finally, on the fourth try I made it. I ran an even split race, didn’t fade, and I was racing at the finish. I didn’t spend the next 2 hours in the medical tent; in fact I put my clothes and shoes on and walked back to the hotel. I never would have been able to do this in my last three marathons. I don’t think you ever figure the marathon out 100%. It’s such a long race and there are so many things that can go wrong or right. I always wanted to run the marathon but it took me four times before I can honestly say I enjoyed running it. I think that this race was a stepping stone for me and now I can push ahead with bigger goals the next time out. I guess the lesson I learned from my marathon experience is: if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.