I'm a lucky girl, though, my husband ran with me, and I have amazing friends who stayed with my kids so we could go down the night before and not have to get up quite so early. The night before, we went to bed at a decent time, I was sleeping great, when BRRING! The hotel clock alarm went off. 3am. Yup. Somebody's idea of a prank was NOT appreciated. My loving hubby hit snooze. Sure enough, about 5 minutes later, BRRING! Off it goes again. "Unplug it!" I wasn't happy. But we did go back to sleep. Woke up at 6am to start getting ready for the start time at 8am, and looked out the window to blowing snow. March 23rd, and there is snow accumulating out the window. Where we are due to run 13.1 miles in about 2 hours. Really?
So we get ready to run and expect to be miserable. We walked the .5 mile to the starting line, warmed up inside, and stayed inside until the last possible moment. When we walked out to the starting line, the snow had stopped (Thank you Lord!!), and the sun was beginning to peek out from the clouds. The National Anthem was sung beautifully, and when the gun went off, all 1294 racers began the slow walk to the start line. Apparently, you don't start running when the gun goes off, you wait until your feet actually touch the start line.
The first few miles weren't bad. I was a little slow, but it's hard to get warmed up when it's 21 degrees farenheight and there's a 15mph wind blowing in your face. Finally around mile 3, after drinking some frozen Gatorade, I got into my groove. It was sunny, I was passing a few people that looked like they should have been faster than me, and I was looking forward to hitting the halfway mark and downing a gel pack. Made it to the 6.5 mile mark, and grabbed some GU from a volunteer. Brr. Never before have I actually had to chew the stuff. It was frozen. Drank some more half frozen water to wash it down, and kept on plugging. I still felt like I was doing a good pace.
I kept on going, enjoying the sunsine, and the people, til around mile 9. I started getting tired. And thirsty. I was ready for more frozen GU. But there wasn't a water station. So I started messing with my radio, and watching for a water station so I could re energize. I didn't slow down, yet, I was just getting ready to be done. That was the farthest I had gone in training, and it was the single long run I'd done to prep for the whole race. It was mile 10 when I started slowing down. Finally got to that water station I'd been waiting the last mile for, but at that point I was starting to hurt. My feet hurt, my knees hurt, my hips hurt. Definitely was wishing I had trained more consistently. There was more shade here, and my face felt frozen. But, only 3 miles to go. You can always keep going just a few more miles, right?
The last mile I actually stopped to walk a few times. Just a few steps, but every time it was harder to get going. Finally the finish line was in sight. I tried to speed up, you always gotta give it your all to cross the finish, but I don't think all my effort resulted in any actual speed. It was just more pounding the pavement at the same pace. I was so sore by the time I crossed the finish, it felt so good to be done. And inside where it was warm. And there was food. Yum. Food. I'll be hungry for several days after this, but hopefully after a few gallons of water and some sleep I won't be feeling quite so sore.
So am I done with races? Oh no. I started looking that night at marathons. Now I know where I'm at, and I have a good idea of what I need to do to get where I want to be. Plus I loved the t-shirt.:) That's one reason I love running. It's not about being the best or being the fastest, it's about knowing where you are and slowly but surely overcoming and getting better. Pushing just a little bit harder than the last time, and proving to yourself what you can do.
Oh and the final results, for anyone who cares: Place 800, net time 2:10:57.
Happy running!
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