I said I wasn’t doing it again.

After running two pretty disappointing marathons, I convinced myself I wouldn’t do another one. They weren’t going well, so maybe the distance just wasn’t for me.

Until eight weeks ago, when scheduling conflicts prevented me from doing the 25k race I was training for. Being in two places at once would be tricky, three would be nearly impossible.

So as I searched for a new goal race, a post popped up on Facebook that the Bayshore Marathon still had openings. This was the race that had me in tears at mile 10 last year. It’s date was the only open Saturday I had.

I mulled the opportunity for a few hours, evaluated my current training, sought the wisdom of fellow runners, and signed up… with the stipulation to myself that I would not set a time goal. I would run just to do the distance and have a race on my calendar to keep me motivated.

Eventually I settled on a modest goals of 4 hours, a negative split (the second half would be faster than the first), and that I would walk through every aid station, all of which would hopefully end in a no pressure run.

It worked!!

Some highlights:

– Time 3:46:47 (my 2nd fastest) (about 2 minutes from qualifying for Boston) One of my friends is trying to talk me into a marathon this fall so we can both qualify. I’m waiting for the soreness to go away before I decide.

– Negative split. The second half was 10 seconds faster than the first. I think I was actually running faster the second half, but I walked more slowly through the water stations.

– Walked through every water station except maybe one. I did skip the beer station. Gross!

– Saw Bill Steffen cheering. He’s a local meteorologist who has a blog and is generally cool. I’m a bit of a weather nerd and had a little fangirl moment. I didn’t run up and hug him or anything although the thought did cross my mind.

– Desiree Linden, US Olympic marathoner and 4th place finisher at Boston this year. She was running along the course when I was at mile 22 or so. I looked at her and thought ‘where do I know her from?’ When her identity clicked, I was too far away to fangirl over her (and at that point I wasn’t turning around), but she told me good job, so I thought that was pretty cool.

– My niece came with me to cheer as her brother-in-law and a friend were running as well. It gave us lots of kid-free time to catch up.

So I’m really glad I raced and will probably do it again.