Sometimes a warm front and head cold are all it takes to dash a dream.

A lot can go wrong in a marathon. A lot. You can blister, bonk, cramp, crash, collapse, or crawl to the finish. Chafing in all the wrong places is a guarantee, and a freak bowel accident near a photog or finish line might make you the top search result for female runner poops marathon forever more. Shit happens.

In January, I ran my second marathon, a disastrous outing that didn’t reflect my training or fitness. No, I did not shit myself (shockingly), but it sucked just the same. So what went wrong? Why did I die such a slow, gruesome death?

Allow me to walk you through my little pity party.

The course was not a factor.

The Chevron Houston Marathon course worms its way from Downtown to West U to the Galleria and back through Memorial Park — a route that would probably take longer to drive on most days than the elites finish it in.

The course is fun, fast, and mostly flat, except that one overpass situation halfway-in that nobody ever mentions (is this some sort of hazing rite?) and then the rolling anthills on Allen Parkway that pose absolutely zero threat during races of 5k to 10k, but somehow require a climbing permit and a team of sherpas to summit when you add another 20 miles to equation. If only there’d been arctic temps to match.

Enter the humidity.

A warm weather notification arrived via email the day before the race. Temps would start at 56° F, rising fast into the 70s.

“That sounds chilly,” I can hear my father chiming in from his recliner in Florida — he who turneth up the heat when it dips below 75° F.

In fact, ideal racing temps for women, from elites to sub-elites to sub-humans such as myself, are believed to be in the 40s, and research has indicated that for a 3:30 marathoner, every degree over 59° F will likely add 2+ seconds to your mile split — meaning a race at 75° F would put you at a 3:45+ finish time. The 2022 edition of the Houston Marathon saw Keira D’Amato and Sarah Hall set American records in the full and half, and myself an earth-shatteringly okay first attempt at a half in 1:40:19 — likely because it was about 33° F at the start.

The 2023 race was warm enough to melt my A Goal (3:30) and B Goal (qualifying for Boston — sub-3:40) into a pool of sludge. Not only was it warm, it was muggy AF with about 87% relative humidity as the gun went off.

This spelled doom for many — this swamp creature included.

Add a head cold.

I will be honest, heat stroke was not at the top of my list of shit to worry about.

What was: a sore throat that started near the tonsil region and progressed so quickly into a full-fledged phlegm fest that I’m surprised it didn’t come with a complimentary copy of Hamnet, a set of bubos, and a woven mat to die upon in front of my fire place.

It was the type of sickness that makes you question things. Why did you attend your nephew’s soccer game four days before the race, for instance? Why, dear god, the Lowe’s in Meyerland? And was this Covid? (according to two swabs of the nostril, no)

The infection lodged an endless supply of yellow-brown sputum in my sinuses, installed barbed wire in my throat, pounded my head, and kept me from sleeping three nights in a row.

But what could be done? What were the options? Run or not run.

So I rinsed my sinuses with my magic NeilMed bottle, shoveled the planned 550 grams of carbs into my face, crawled to H-E-B to find the chicken noodle soup with the most carbs — 22 grams, it’s 22 grams — and found a package of well-aged Sudafed congealed to some Tussin beneath my sink.

I tried something new.

It’s amazing what a little speed can do. I cleaned the house. I took a walk. I felt the best I’d felt in six years — thanks, Sudafed! But I didn’t sleep a wink.

When I closed my eyes I’d visualize the race and then remember how sick I felt, and then a wave of overwhelming rage and despair would wash over me.

On race morning, I woke up at 4 a.m to drink my coffee and shovel in more carbs. Bagel and light peanut butter. Oatmeal. Pretzels. Half a banana. Gram crackers. Maurten drink mix. Nuun tab. Gatorade. Yes, this is what I normally consume before long runs and races. I also took another Sudafed, and did things in the bathroom no Santa doorstop should ever have to witness. Now, nowhere does it actually say diarrhea is a side effect of Sudafed.

“Just do the best you can,” my sister texted.

I was dealing with a lot more stress than usual.

Everything the books and blogs on marathoning say to avoid had come to fruition:

I lost my job and started a new hustle in the weeks before the race
I had the added pleasure of it being the holidays
I picked up a nasty cold during race week
I tried something new on race week and race day — my bff pseudoephedrine

But it was time to deliver. I got to the corral, finished up a small bottle of watered down gatorade, peed twice, did some light mobility exercises, sacrificed an XXL throw-away shirt to the nearest fence gods, situated myself between the 3:40 and 3:45 pacers, and ate another Maurten gel.

And so it is.

My goal was to hang with the 3:40 group for most of the race and push in the last few miles to sneak in with the Boston Qualifying time. I got separated from the group before we even reached the start line as the corral filled in and hundreds of people somehow poured in front of me. I started probably a minute behind the 3:40 pacers, maybe more. Caught them around Mile 5. The pace felt too slow for me, though, so by Mile 10, I’d put some distance on them. I took in water and Gatorade at every fluid station and ate my Maurten gels every 4 miles.

This was fine until around Mile 18 when I started to feel a little woozy. I was drifting into ick-territory despite drinking at every water stop. I hung on for Mile 19 and 20, my pace falling off a little as I entered Memorial Park’s Miles of Music.

Rolling up on every Water Station from Mile 18 on …

I needed Motorhead. I needed Death Grips. I got unknown male country singer doing a smarmy ballad — much better suited for this type of torture in retrospect.

I’m not sure when it was that I started to feel bad, real bad — the bonk, the wall, the inability to move or to care. Somewhere around Mile 22 side stitches shot across both sides of my gut and I couldn’t get all of my final Maurten gel down. Then, my shoulder cramped and sent even more cramping down my left romboid. I’ve never had anything like this remotely happen to me in any race or on a run. It was just sheer dehydration, defeat, doom.

As the 3:40 group passed on my left — around Mile 23, I think — I felt ashamed and annoyed and dumb. I couldn’t go with them. I couldn’t move at all. There was a woman walking in front of me, so I joined her. I walked on and off until Mile 25 and shuffled in for the finish with a 3:47:44.

In the convention center, I received a commemorative glass beer mug for finishers sheathed in clumsy plastic, my glycogen-depleted brain barely able to understand how to carry it. The convention center floor erupted, I imagine, in explosions of shattered glass all day as sugar-starved runners poured in. I held onto mine, but left my crushed ego and broken dreams trailing behind me for all to see. Only now have I begun to pick up the pieces.

Nailed It

Carbo loading. Thanks to this handy Featherstone Nutrition Carb Load Guide (free!), I could simply add up the grams of carbs needed in the 2-3 days prior to the race.

My build up. My races went well. I ran a half and 25K at race pace (sub 8 min. pace actually), and a 12k at 7:21 pace while suffering stomach cramps. I truly believe my workouts, including a 22-mile progression three weeks before the race, were indicative of a sub-3:30 performance.

Failed It

My race strategy. At Mile 9, I moved ahead of the 3:40 group and started knocking off 8:00-8:15s and felt really good, which would’ve been fine if I’d been at 100 percent and the weather was cooler, but I think this surge, combined with dehydration and my general fatigue from being sick, ultimately backfired.

Hydration. I should’ve carried a bottle with electrolytes and water for the first few miles of the race, brought salt chews (I didn’t even know these were an option, honestly), and since I’m an ugly Christmas sweater — just “eek” levels of salty, salty sweating over here — I’m going to look into Skratch Labs.

Biggest Lessons

Preparing for a marathon is as much about mitigating the potential hazards that await as it is about logging miles, but that doesn’t mean things will go your way on race day. There are eventualities and inevitabilities to contend with, variables as uncontrollable as the tides. That’s also why I’m drawn to the marathon. It’s unpredictable, formidable, a little insane. Much like writing, the payoff is in the practice, the ritual, the day-to-day work that nobody sees happening and that only matters to you, at least it should if you want it to carry you through the mundanities of your measly existence.

Also:

Avoid humans during race week

Stick with the race strategy
Beware the mid-race surge; save it for the end
Hydrate like a motherfucker and replenish those salts, girl

Death By Heat, Houston 2023