Caroline Cretti's Journal

April 28, 2008 Entry (Posted April 28, 2008)

I just finished watching the Olympic Team Trials - Women's Marathon on TV. It was weird to watch a race that you had prepared for and thought about for six months thinned down to just one hour—but even so, it was wonderful to hear the stories of Joan Benoit Samuelson and Deena Kastor, whose successes and dedication are legend in our small running world, broadcast on national television.

As the coverage closed on the top three and the 1984 gold medalist embracing, you could just make out women still finishing in the background. It was sort of a perfect scene: four women who have and will continue to set the standard for women's distance running framing the 110+ of us taking our final steps in the Olympic Trials.

Watching that moment, I couldn't help but think of the dozens of stories I had heard about many of the women who raced that day. For each Olympian, there are 20 hometown heroes whose local newspapers (for better or for worse) don't know the difference between a 2:19 and a 2:47 and talked about the local girl running "the Boston Marathon"; for each mom, there was a recent college graduate. You had women from Kansas, from Nigeria, from Florida, and from Poland.

One woman I talked to had become a mother only two months before the race. Another came to Boston the race with one PR and left with one 13 minutes faster and a top-fifteen finish, and was followed closely by an Olympian who had qualified for six consecutive Olympic Trials marathons.

Quite the spectrum, huh?

My own story this time around was interesting—or at least more "volatile" than my Twin Cities buildup. It involved great training in the heaviest snow year in history in Colorado, an Achilles injury (and marathon pool sessions), a foot that spontaneously swelled to the size of a football (still a mystery!), and a support system that is second to none. ZAP provided the opportunity and means to even make it to Boston. My family listened to my woes and my excitement for months and flew across the country to watch the race. And my friends and old teammates from Williams College lined the course in what must be the most incredible showing of support I have EVER experienced. I had over five competitors during the race ask me, "are you the Caroline those people are yelling about?" or "man, you have a big cheering section" and those kinds of memories (if you have an ego like mine…) are pretty hard to forget.

181 women qualifiers, 181 stories. If only Bob Costas knew what he was missing.

January 22, 2008 Entry (Posted January 23, 2008)

Since my last journal entry, I have been training at home in Carbondale, Colorado. No races, not even a lot of concrete workouts, instead focusing on getting a good (great?) base for The Olympic Trials.

At dinner the other night, I was talking to a friend who had just told me about his plans to run a March marathon. I was excited and began to ask him the usual questions when I realized that my enthusiasm was not mirrored in his own face; in fact, he looked downright depressed about the whole idea. "I just signed up because I needed some definition to my winter. But I think it was a bad choice, I hate running in the winter," he said. "It's cold, windy, dark…. don’t you hate it too?"

I almost agreed. I mean, his description of "winter running" was awful—freezing temperatures, fading daylight, head winds that seem to hit no matter what direction you are going—but then I realized that regardless of all the negatives (which this guy managed to relay in great detail for about 10 minutes straight), I sort of enjoy winter running.

Don't get me wrong, I can see where this guy was coming from. I live in the heart of the mountains in Western Colorado, aka Ski Country—not the easiest place to tackle the challenges of serious training during the winter months. I am surrounded by people who light up when they seem storms settling over the valley and keep their fingers crossed for freezing temperatures and the promise of powder days for their turns at the local ski areas. I try to smile as they describe their "epic" days on the mountains, but really grit my teeth and gaze over their shoulders for the blinking lights of the snowplows. Little do they know my fingers are crossed for 35-degree days and sunshine. A traitor in their midst!

The record snowfall this year has forced me onto major roads (the only ones plowed) and the treadmill. Every morning I check to see if my window is covered with ice and choose accordingly from the 85 layers of assorted "performance gear" scattered about my room, with a small yearning for the summer days of shorts and tank tops.

And there is the issue of icebaths. It seems counter-intuitive and masochistic to submerge your legs into 45-degree water when it is 20 outside…

But there is something about winter running that I love and it's not just the satisfaction afterwards that you "toughed it out." I love getting up a little later and waiting for the snow to thaw. I love seeing the black asphalt shining through the slush, or catching two miles of rare cleared bike path that in the summer I would have taken for granted. I love the feeling midway in the run when you get too hot and have to take off your headband or a layer of clothes and then a gust comes up and you have to stop and put them back on. I love how bright the sun reflects off the snow and how quickly it disappears in the afternoon.

I miss the trails, and the consistency of the other seasons, but I think what I love the most about the winter is you appreciate every little bit of sun, road, warmth, and smooth step more than any other time of the year. So here's to January!

Introductory Entry (Posted November 20, 2007)

I have been at ZAP for a little over a year.  Enough time to race a handful of PRs, survive my first summer in the hot and humid south, learn how to cook for a group of 10 hungry athletes, and of course, run many, many miles on the amazing trails in the surrounding Blue Ridge Mountains.  The past 14 months have been filled with new experiences and the ups (running for a living…) and downs (four month Achilles injury) that come with transitions of any kind.  The most recent adventure was completing my first marathon at the Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon on October 7.

Before coming to ZAP, I assumed that if I did run a marathon, it would be far in the future.  I thought that was how it worked: move up to longer distances after you "max out" at the shorter ones—but as my coach, Pete Rea, began to hint at 26.2 miles, I also began to hear about runners (male and female) who either began marathon running with huge success at a young age or ran the distance with continued track PRs.  I began to realize that it just made sense, especially in an Olympic Trials year.

So with surprisingly little conversation and more just general understanding, I began to prepare for a fall '07 marathon.  Pete and I decided on Twin Cities because of its more low-key nature, rolling terrain (good for a "strength runner"), and perhaps because of the previous success ZAP had at the race with a runner up finish by ZAP Founder Zika Rea at the 2005 Marathon Championships.  From the beginning of the short eight-week build up, I was thrilled to be preparing for Twin Cities, even though I knew Chicago was a technically faster course.  I just had a feeling.
Turns out it may have been more of a barometric than karmic reading.  As the race neared, word spread of record temperatures throughout the Midwest, from Minnesota to Pennsylvania, but the heat was supposed to peak in Chicago the Sunday of both races. 

Don't get me wrong…Twin Cities was hot.  The hottest on record I think, but NOTHING compared to what I have heard about Chicago.  And I think just knowing that there were thousands of people running the same distance in much worse conditions made dealing with our own heat easier.   As weird (and heartless!?) as that sounds, it really stopped me from even taking the Minnesota weather into consideration.

So onto the race. I think it is sort of hard to talk about marathons after the fact, and the "amnesia factor" of the marathon is just amazing.  Fifteen mintues after the race, I swore I would never do it again.  25 minutes later?  I would have done it again the next day (except that I couldn't sit down, touch my toes, or feel my calves…but mentally I was there).  
Slowly, pieces of the race come back to you in a kind of comical montage that floats through randomly whenever you think about it.  Here are some of the pieces I can give you, since I myself am still attempting to turn them into a cohesive experience:

*Miles 1 to 5- I was terrified because it didn't feel easy like everyone said.  Someone actually told me before that if "the first half of the race didn't feel like a cake walk, you should be worried." So I was.  It took me about five miles to warm up and feel 'normal'.

*The course was amazing—the first 17 or so miles were beautiful, winding through the lakes of Minneapolis on relatively narrow park and neighborhood roads.  Some may have found it more difficult to get into a rhythm on the twists and turns, but I found comfort in not being able to see each consecutive mile, the shade of the trees, and the single track running trails I could see snaking through the parks. 

* I tried to throw water on myself at each station, but once accidentally grabbed the fluorescent blue PowerAde and squirted it all over my face before I realized what was going on.

* I basically ran alone for all 26.2 miles.  After the first split, I realized that main pack of women were moving a little quick, so I had to make the conscious decision to let them go.  That was tough.  It is hard to have patience in competition, especially when you purposely fall off the back of a group you think you can run with, but I tried to remember it is better to pass then to hold on—and sure enough, as people started struggling in the second half of the race, I was able to use them  and bring some "fight" back into the potential time trial.   

* Over the course of the race, no less than 10 people yelled "hey, nice shoes!" as I ran past—complements of the bright (startlingly bright really) green and yellow Reebok Ethiopian flats I wore.

*At mile 24, I found a second (third? fourth?) wind—credit due entirely to Pete's training, since the last Gu slipped through my hands at mile 20….

*During the last 15 meters of the race, I looked up and saw that a finish-line clock read 2:53 and I almost let myself collapse with less than 10 seconds to go.  How could that be my time? Was my watch broken? After all that, I had missed qualifying!  But at the last second I realized that I was looking at the wheel-chair time.  The runners had started 10 minutes later and our clock was on the other side of the finish. 

Those are some of the images floating through my mind.  Someone once said that "You have to forget your last marathon before you try another. Your mind can't know what's coming," but I think for me, the more I remember and learn from this first marathon, the better I will be able to race the next.  Bring on Boston!