Rose Campos' 2006 Rock N Roll San Diego Marathon
A former cross country runner with a decent base training for a half marathon, I thought she had a chance to possibly qualify for the Boston Marathon. She needed to run the marathon at 3:40:59 or faster to do it. I gave her a training plan for the remainder of the weeks before the marathon. It was a condensed version and only included a 17 and a 21 mile run. I figured with those runs under her belt she possibly could pull out the BQ.
As soon as I first got to the 10-mile marker I saw the 3:40 pace group and looked for Rose but couldn’t find her. I figured she was ahead of them, but for some reason I stayed at the water stop an additional 4 minutes waiting just in case she was behind them. As time continued to tick by I knew Rose had already passed. Then I realized I had a huge task on my hands. I had to catch up somehow and then find her. How was I going to do that in a race with more than 17,000 runners?
Basically I figured I needed to run a very fast 5K or 10K distance to catch up considering how far back I was. With barely a warm up, I sprinted for over 6 miles in order to catch up. I remember starting my watch right as I started and I just booked it. When I got to the 13.1 mile marker, I looked at my watch and it said 18:45 or something. I basically ran a sub-6:00 min/mile 5K and I still hadn’t caught up yet. I was exhausted so I slowed down a little for the next three miles. I kept up the intensity and speed and only slowing about 30-45 seconds per mile. I passed the 3:45 pace group.
So I knew I was getting closer. I scanned faces in the crowd looking for Rose and then caught up to the 3:40 pace group but she was not there. Where was she? Was she ahead of the group? Finally, after mile 16 right behind another 3:40 pace group (why there were two I have no idea) I saw her. “Thank God,” I thought. I yelled to get her attention and we were on our way.
Rose said she was feeling good and told me that by mile 24 if she feels the same we could break from the pace group and go faster. I was confident that she could feel solid at that point, but at the same time I knew anything could happen in the next 10 miles. We started to run faster and were ahead of the 3:40 pace group now. Everything seemed fine until we got to mile 19/20 and then Rose started to struggle.
The next few miles were difficult. I knew she was having a hard time by hearing her breathing pattern and my Fitsense pace watch displayed we slowed to a 9:45 pace, although I know my watch was a bit slow, so I thought we were more around 9:35. I didn’t know how much longer Rose could hold on to her pace. I kept positive though. I knew we had time in the bank since she said had a delay of three minutes before reaching the start line. So that meant the times on the clock were not her true net/chip time. She said she started her watch when the gun went off at the start, so we really didn’t know her accurate time until well after the race was over.
So for the next two miles we slowed considerably to a 10:00/10:30 pace at times. I knew she still had a chance to qualify in the back of my mind. I kept running the numbers based on the 3-minute starting time differential. Still, I didn’t want to push Rose too much. I knew we had 4 miles left. I figured around mile 24 I would start to encourage her to go faster if she was still able to do so. That’s exactly what happened.
At mile 24 the clock was out so I asked Rose what the time read. She said 3:23. I figured if we maintained at least a 10 minute mile we could just get in under the Boston Marathon qualifying time. It was great we had about a 3-minute cushion, or so we hoped since we did not know exactly how long it took for her to reach the start line. So we began to run a little faster. I told her, “Just keep this pace and you’re going to Boston.” My watch read 9:30 pace, then 9:15. Every so often she would speed up and then slow back down to around 10:00 pace, but we never went under 10:00 pace for the remainder of the race.
When mile 25 approached I told her, “Come on Rose, you have 1.2 miles left. You’re on and you're doing a speed workout.” I could see a mix of hunger and pain in Rose’s eyes. I knew she was feeling horrible. Trust me, after running 9 marathons, I know the pain you feel at mile 25 of a marathon. Rose hadn’t had a full training regimen so the pain was probably even more exaggerated. We kept it up, she even sped up to a 8:30 pace for a minute or two.
She was running with all the strength she had left. I started getting emotional at this point. I could picture us crossing the finish line in-tact. I could picture Rose qualifying for the Boston Marathon in her first-ever marathon. I could feel the excitement of it all. It was truly thrilling. Then we make one of the last turns into the Marine Corps Recruit Depot. I knew there was a little over a half mile left at that point. I said, “You’re on a track doing an 800 repeat. Just push through the pain. It’s temporary.”
At this point I was getting the crowd into it. I was pointing at Rose and having them cheer for her. They were definitely loud. We could hear the speaker announcing at the finish line. We ran under a bridge and it was like entering in a stadium of wide open space. The crowd was getting louder and louder.
We passed the 26-mile marker and I knew we most likely qualified. With just 0.2 miles left I saw the clock read 3:42-something in the distance. I told Rose just to run as fast as she could. I knew she was in pain. I knew this was very difficult for her, but it was all going to end in a matter of seconds. We crossed through and our gun time was 3:43:45. I thought with at least a 2:45 differential or longer Rose would qualify for Boston
.
Our task now was to figure out just how long the differential actually was. After decompressing, eating and walking around, we went to the information booth to find out her net time. Race officials said it wouldn’t be available until 7:00 p.m. It was killing us. I had this feeling though that we would either qualify by seconds or miss it by seconds. It was agonizing. Rose was in the 7th corral. She believed she was delayed 3 minutes, so we tried to find people in her corral to confirm that. Everyone had their race bib with the corral number stuck to it. We ran into a trainer she knew from her gym. He was in corral 5 and said he was delayed about a minute and a half. That gave us somewhat of an idea.
Finally, in line at the shuttle bus we found a guy behind us who was also in the 7th corral. He told us he was at the back of the corral and he was delayed at least 3 and a half minutes. Rose said she was at the front of the corral. At this point I knew she most likely did it. Would being at the front make much of a difference?
It turned it did not.
About 8 hours later Rose called me and screamed into the phone that her net time was 3:40:32 – she qualified for the Boston Marathon with 28 seconds left to spare. The only word that came to my mind was INCREDIBLE. On limited training in her first-ever marathon Rose pulled out a gutsy performance most people in her position wouldn’t have been able to do. INCREDIBLE. She toughed it out during the last 6 miles and did not succumb to walking. INCREDIBLE. Pulling through the pain is basically what she did and that granted her a spot in the most coveted and historic marathon in the world - The Boston Marathon. INCREDIBLE.
