Juliana Moves

What a weekend! Another successful Richmond Marathon in the books: I PR’d by 14 minutes! With my recent 50k, that makes two PRs in two weeks. I’m stoked.

My previous marathon PR was Richmond last year. I ran 4:38:10 and 4:41:11 for the course (I did not run the tangents, so it came to 26.48 miles.) This year I ran the marathon distance in 4:24:04 and the course (again, long at 26.43 miles) in 4:26:22. I am so proud! I’ll get into race day more, but to recap the whole weekend let’s start with…

Friday

Patrick and I both ended up taking the day off, but we still wanted to get to Richmond early. I woke up at 5:30, packed for the weekend, loaded Alaska into the car, and we were off! The drive down was easy so early in the morning and we arrived by 8:45 am. 

I wanted to stay off my feet, so we didn’t do too much. Before we went to the expo, we stopped at a bakery called Up All Night, and I had a delicious morning bun. When we got to the expo, the marathon gods were shining down on us because we got a front row parking spot. The volunteers direct you to a parking spot in this giant field outside of the raceway, and historically we’ve had to park far and walk quite a ways. Not this year! It was awesome. We were in and out of packet pick up pretty quickly since we got there right as it opened. 

Please note: that is a lavender lemonade kombucha in my hand. Not a beer, like many people thought!

Afterwards, we had a quick lunch at Erica’s apartment and then strolled around a few cool shops downtown. Patrick and I also went to a shake out run hosted by The Lyss Method. This is the strength training program I use (I normally use Perform, but I swapped over to Race leading into Richmond), so it was so fun to meet a bunch of other people who train that way too and to meet Alyssa!

I was weirdly tired that day, so we mostly lounged around, had an early dinner, and then I think I was asleep by 9 pm. On Friday I focused on hyperhydrating and finishing off as many carbs as I could!

Saturday

My alarm went off at 5 am and I was up! I felt great after sleeping 8+ hours. I had my usual pre-long run breakfast of coffee and a bagel with cream cheese, got dressed, added some glitter to my face, and I was ready to go.

On Thursday evening, Patrick said to me “are you bringing a short sleeve? It’s supposed to get to 70 on Saturday.” I legitimately asked him if he was joking because the forecast had initially had a high in the mid 50s. Turns out, he was serious. Thank god I packed a short sleeve because that’s what I ended up wearing! I wore my ugly marathon long sleeve (sorry, Sportsbackers, but the yellow kills me) for some extra warmth at the start. It ended up being weirdly humid and warm, so I took it off and stashed it in my pack almost immediately. 

Erica and Patrick dropped me off at the start, I warmed up, and found my corral. Here was my general race plan:

Miles 0-8: start conservatively and get settled in. I was aiming for ~10:30 min/miles.

Miles 9-18: get progressively faster, trying to stay chill and well-fed.

Miles 19-26.2: tempo and run as hard as I could!

I initially seeded into the 4:30 finish pace group, but realized that would be too quick to start. I decided to let them run away from me, find my 10:30 pace myself, and then eventually pass them later in the race. Spoiler: hell yeah, I did.

Erica, Patrick, and Derek had been debating whether they were all going to ride bikes to cheer for me, or get their runs in and spectate on the run. I wasn’t sure when I’d end up seeing them, so I just decided to focus on my run.

Because it was humid and warmer than expected, I knew I needed to focus on hydration, particularly electrolytes. I was dripping sweat by 3 miles in. They had Nuun on the course, but it was so diluted that it was practically just water, and it wouldn’t have had enough sodium for me at full strength anyway. My nutrition plan included drinking a bottle of Gu Roctane, a bottle of SALTT, and water on the course. I ate multiple gels and chews throughout, too. I had packed an extra sleeve of Roctane, but didn’t think I’d use it since I thought it wouldn’t be so humid and warm. When I realized that getting fluids down would not be a problem, I was sort of excited to get the bonus carbs from my extra sleeve of Roctane. I also had Erica get me another bottle of sodium, which I think saved me from crashing out later in the race.

I saw a lot of people walking and a lot of people throwing up. I really think it was hydration related.

Anyway, I’m really proud of the way I executed my race plan. My heart rate was weirdly higher than usual (likely the conditions), but I tried to take deep breaths and stay calm about it. At mile 15ish, you run about an on ramp onto a long bridge back across the river. In 2023 and 2024, this was a low point for me as the climb up to the bridge is sort of brutal and mile 15 is a reasonable rough point in a marathon. This year, I was working hard and feeling that effort, but I otherwise felt great. I kept telling myself, “marathons are supposed to be hard.”

By the time I got to mile 18, when I wanted to start my tempo, I was hurting but still feeling strong. I didn’t get my pace as quick as I wanted, but I worked hard anyway! I got a side stitch at one point and that irritation got to me mentally. I practiced a lot of positive self talk, hydrated even more, massaged my side, and got through it! Problem solving is an important skill in a marathon.

I finally caught the 4:30 pace group around mile 20. Passing them was a great mental boost. I focused on making sure they wouldn’t catch back up to me!

The finish line is at the bottom of a big hill, which is fun but also feels insane on your fatigued legs. I tried to let gravity take me as much as possible without simply tumbling down the road. I cried as I crossed the finish line, but I always do. How can you not?! Running is amazing. 

I thought I would want to sit down immediately post-race, but I felt weirdly okay. Stiff and tired, but not absolutely trashed. It made me wonder if I could’ve pushed harder. I guess we’ll have to find out next year! My average pace was 10:04 min/mile, and now I really want to get into the 9 minute range… Classic!

Post-Race

We got home, ate lunch, and then lounged on the couch for hours. We finally watched A Haunting in Venice. If you recall from other blog posts, this was the movie version of Halloween Party by Agatha Christie. It’s not the best movie ever, but it also wasn’t very scary. It had two or three cheesy jump scares. We knew whodunnit because we had read the book (although it isn’t really the same story at all), but I think it’d be a great watch if you didn’t already know the guilty character(s)!

We had dinner reservations at 5:30, so we all got dressed and headed across town. The food was fine, but we had a fun time. I think I passed out again early Saturday night!

Sunday

We all slept in a bit (aka 7 am, lol), Erica made us breakfast, and then we headed to Pocahontas State Park. Patrick had another run to do, Derek wanted to ride, and Erica and I went on a chill hike. 

This park is great because it’s not technical and the trails are all pretty smooth. I was shockingly sore, so I wasn’t moving too fast.

My race was obviously the star of the weekend, but at the park I made a purchase that might rival the glory of my PR…

A BEAVER HAT!!!!

Erica and I hiked to the park’s nature center, and they had all these hats with various animals embroidered on them. There wasn’t a beaver option at the nature center, and I even commented to Erica that that’s what I really wanted. I almost bought a hat with a copperhead on it, but decided it wasn’t worth the money. Thank god I held out, because when we finished our hike we walked into the visitor center and THERE IT WAS! A beaver option! I bought it immediately and wore it for the rest of the day. 

I think I said “I love my beaver hat” at least 15 times throughout the day.

We picked up lunch, packed up our crap, and then journeyed to a local coffee shop before officially driving home. We went to Riverbend Roastery, and I got an iced pumpkin spice latte. It was very enjoyable!

The drive home wasn’t too bad. Traffic was relatively light and we listened to podcasts and Christmas music. It felt good to come home, clean up and get our lives in order, and then go to sleep in our own bed.

All in all, 10 out of 10 weekend. Now, in ~40 minutes, I am going to sign up for my next race! Are you even surprised?

Love, 

JN