Linden's Pensieve

I feel really great about my showing in my first marathon, but now it’s time to get down to the numbers. I’m not going to be doing any “coulda, shoulda, woulda.” My most basic goal was to do my best and finish the race, prove to myself that I can do it, and I did those things. I’ll be more critical next time around, when I actually do focus more on pace.

If you haven’t read them already, be sure to check out part 1 (Starting line to Km 14) and part 2 (Km 14 to Finish Line)!

Across The Line

“This is it! I did it!” I was laughing out loud, smiling a big, proud smile. A medal was placed around my neck, the Schwarz-Rot-Gelb of the German flag striking on the ribbon. I looked at it. On one side, the Brandenburger Tor, which I had just run through, and on the other, the face of Haile Gebrselassie with the world record he set last year at the Berlin Marathon, and which he broke during this year’s Berlin Marathon.

In part 1 of this race report, I left off with saying goodbye to my husband at about kilometer 14.

I left my cheering squad on a mental high. I was running faster than I planned, talking short walking breaks like I knew I should no matter how I felt, and felt great. I kept up with the high 5s, the cheering. Kept looking at my kilometer messages and thinking about memories with whoever had signed up for the kilometer I was on, sometimes repeating their message over and over in my head.

I don’t even know where to start. I guess at the beginning.

On Sunday, September 28, 2008, Rob woke me up at 6:00. Got dressed, ate a banana and Kashi bar, and we all loaded into the van to go to the Zepernick train station. We were the first on the platform, so I took a jog down to the end and back to warm up my muscles. By the time I got back, there were three other marathoners waiting for the train. On every stop into Berlin, more marathoners got on the train—easily spotted by their plastic marathon bags

Well, I’m posting this late, but I really would like to have a full record of my marathon training! Rob and I left for a two-week research trip to America on September 9, so I spent the two 1/2 weeks before the marathon running in a new place. Because of some great help, it turned out not to be a problem at all.

I’m posting this late too, but at least I’m getting it online, right? Complete marathon race report coming soon!

Monday, 1 September 2008

run type: training run

Let me first start by saying that I do not expect you to lose a night of sleep just so you can wait for Twitter posts or watch the live feed hoping for a glimpse of yours truly. But if you want to, well, I hope you can either sleep in on Sunday or Monday, or like long Sunday afternoon naps. (I sure do!) The marathon starts at

We are safely back in Germany, and we’ve got my dad and step-mom with us! We met them at the Frankfurt airport this afternoon, and we’ll be leaving for Berlin tomorrow! But on to the subject of this post…

You might remember that I dyed my hair black last November.

Last week I had quite the runner’s high: 3 mid-week runs at great paces and a virtually spotless 20-mile run. This week, all that came crashing down. After my 12 miler on Wednesday, I had a blister on my ankle caused by deterioration in my shoes. They are unwearable. The run on Friday in my first running shoes (am I really on only my second pair of running shoes?!) was painful,

Today’s 12-mile run almost didn’t happen. I already didn’t run yesterday because I had an upset stomach since after the 20 miler on Sunday (but I’ll be making that one up tomorrow). I just wasn’t feeling like running today, but I’m 31 days out from my marathon and skipping a run so close to my first ever 26-point-frickin-2 mile run just doesn’t sound good. Plus, I had FrayedLaces’ mantra in my head (see #2), so I laced up my Pearl Izumis and hit the road.