Prague Marathon

Many runners, including the current world record holder, say that the marathon is not really a race against your competitors, but a race against the distance itself. Sunday, for the first time in three tries, the marathon decisively defeated me.
In my previous two marathons - in Chicago and Berlin - I let my training dictate what my goal should be and set out to ran accordingly, at a relatively conservative pace. In both cases I ran well for most of the race, only tiring at the very end when it was clear I could finish. Both times I surpassed my goal by a couple of minutes. Conversely, this weekend in Prague, I decided to try to break the 3-hour barrier, even though my training didn't definitively indicate I was ready to do so. That meant running an aggressive race, particularly risky in the marathon, which can punish a runner like no other distance.
The start was a little chaotic, as I had to pick my way through hundreds of runners, but I eventually found the 3-hour pace group and joined in with them. I passed the halfway point under 3-hour pace, although I didn't have much margin for error and was beginning to tire a little bit. I cracked after crossing a bridge at about the 25-km mark. I lost contact with the pace group, leaving me to run largely on my own because there were few runners immediately behind us. There were not many fans on that section of the course either, making a very lonely stretch of running.
Slowing down was OK, I could just set my sights on finishing, but a few kilometres later I began to feel some painful tightness in my right leg. I passed Chelsey shortly after this point, and she says I was limping when I ran up to her. I considered dropping out there, but decided I wanted to finish, even if it was slow. I kept going for a few more kilometres, but when I hobbled up to the 33km mark, I couldn't take the thought of limping through another 9km and dropped out.
Some runners will say you should almost never drop out of a race, believing that dropping out will teach you it's OK and lead to future unfinished races. I've always thought this was backward; if dropping felt good to someone, they probably lack the desire or determination to succeed anyways. Certainly this hasn't changed my mind. Nothing about dropping out on Sunday makes me feel good. It's a big disappointment. Even as I hobbled around the apartment yesterday, I really just wanted to go for a run to get back training again and put it behind me. (Don't worry, I have enough sense to ignore that urge and take the time off to let my legs heal.) In my next marathon - and I haven't decided yet when that will be - I sure won't be tempted to drop out by this memory.
-Jason