Top Ten List

I've thought about this one a lot in the last few weeks 'post marathon' so without further procrastination, here's my Top Ten "Ways to Screw-up Your 1st Marathon"

10. Set an unrealistic goal. If you do your 20 milers at 8:40 pace, then what illogical thought process made me think I could do 8:20 for the marathon. . . and hold it an additional 6.2 miles?
9. Start out waaaayyy too fast. And on a humid morning, and a hilly course. Hello? What was I thinking?
8. When the facts are clearly right in front of you, fail to adjust to the situation early enough to make a difference. Actually, failed to adjust at all really. At mile 7= 4 minutes ahead of pace; then at mile 10= 5 mins ahead. Huh? How come it didn't occur to me that I must slow down until my legs already were beginning their revolt/cramps?
7. Drive your car 10 hours the day before the race. Duh. Arrive at the hotel at a quarter till midnight. Doh!
6. Recruit a support person who is not a runner. In all fairness to the Mrs., this ended up being a minor issue given all the other major screw ups. But the water, cereal bar, and dry towel would've been nice at 16. And the missed Gu handoff was a real factor. The refusal to wake up & get out of bed at 5:30...plus the double back to the hotel after packet pick-up for the wife pick-up, that added a bit of stress.
5. Fail to interpret the course description profile correctly. "This course has LOTS of HILLS? Why didn't they just come out and say that?"
4. Other translation miscues: When they said this marathon is good for first timers, they didn't mean that the course is not challenging; they meant 1,000's of locals will come out to watch you suffer. When they said the race has a high BQ ratio, they forgot to mention that they invite a lot of fast people to come up to Vermont to race. Kind of like Carlsbad 5000 is 'America's fastest 5k' because of the runners that it attracts (it's not the course there either people).
3. Start out way too fast. This one cannot be understated as the primary reason for failure.
2. Drink a few beers & eat crappy food for the pre-race meal. It tasted good, but greasy cheese puffs, mini spinach quiche and fried mushrooms is not proper carbo-loading fare.
1. And from the home office, the number one way to screw-up your first marathon is... "Logical thinking . . . who needs that?"