Hi ladies!
First, Happy Birthday to Stephanie and Belinda! YAY!!! Your pics are beautiful, Stephanie...thanks so much for sharing them.
Oh my, where do I start, lol. Let's see we drove up yesterday afternoon and made a quick stop at Sonic (yeah….we love that place!) I tried a mocha java chiller….yummy but about 500 calories, yikes! Then we checked into the hotel and found out they weren't offering late checkouts for the marathoners, what a bummer. I had to pack a bag with a change of clothes to drop off at the baggage drop in the marathon host hotel. I couldn't stand the thought of driving an hour and half in my stinky running clothes and torturing DH.
I got up this morning and decided to go with shorts and a long sleeve top (with my terry sweatshirt on top that I tied around my waist when it got warm). The weather was cloudy, foggy, but NO rain as predicted. We left the hotel at 6:30 am and it took us 30 minutes to drive down to the start which was 5 miles away. The traffic was backed up something terrible, the town was definitely not built for a mass of people all trying to get to one spot! DH got me about ¼ mile from the start but I still had to run and check in my bag with my change of clothing.
I made it outside near the start corral at about 7:20 am and runners were backed up outside the gate to get in. We stood there until the gun went off and then pushed our way in to run over the timing mat (we wore timing chips). I figure it took about 4 minutes to cross over. Once we were over, we ran as a huge pack for a couple of miles until it started to thin out a bit. Both half marathoners and full marathoners started at the same time so there were 8500 people running the first leg (the course is two laps of the same 13.1 miles).
They gave us the option of having our names printed on our number bibs. I'm SO glad I decided to do it. What a wonderful thing to have lots of strangers calling out your name and encouraging you along the way. I really needed it a few times because my legs started out feeling tired and only got more tired as I went along, lol.
The support crew at the water stations was incredible, and the stations were very well placed this year. I never felt thirsty once (although I can't even look at a cup of Gatorade right now!)
THE most inspirational thing I saw today was a lady pushing her Mom in an adult jog stroller. She was in amazing shape and whizzed right by me, lol but what a wonderful thing to witness. Her Mom had a huge smile on her face and the crowd went wild when they saw them. Ah, getting a little teary here.
The first loop went very well and I might have paced myself too slow. I usually push harder the first half because I know the second half is harder (especially the last 5 miles). My half time was about 2:27 (chip time) and I heard the announcer saying the first marathoner was coming in right behind me. Wow I thought, dang….he's almost done! The second half started out pretty well but I had to take a bathroom break at about mile 15. I got out of there feeling a little stiff but it went away after about a quarter mile. The tiredness hit me at about mile 20 and then again at mile 23. I started dragging serious butt about then….lol. I thought I had it in the bag for under 5 hours but I fizzled. I'm telling you, I'm so grateful for the people on the boardwalk hollering my name the last half mile. They literally pushed me in.
I have to say all in all this was the most enjoyable marathon to date for me. I didn't push too hard but enjoyed the spectacle of it all. The feeling you get in a huge crowd all moving as one is a feeling unlike any other. The energy is so thick you feel like you can reach out and "touch" it.
My chip time was about 5:04:39 (because I turned my heart rate monitor off before I ran over the finish line mat). It's a pace of about 11:37 and I'm more than fine with it. Heck, I'm just happy to be crossing the finish line.
I also think I learned my lesson as far as doing too much right before the marathon. It probably wasn't too smart to do the duathlon last weekend, lol. I think that was definitely the reason for the tired legs. My cardio capacity never felt challenged at all, I never felt breathless or like I was over exerting in that respect. But it was like my cardio and physical were on different levels. My poor little legs would NOT run as fast as my mind and lungs told them to! DH said I try to do too many things at one time and should just concentrate on the one thing that's important to me. I have a hard time because my attention span wants to encompass everything. I hear my mind saying "you can do it" but my 45 year old body is saying otherwise.
Anyway, thanks for reading this if you got this far! In a nutshell, it was a BLAST!
Kathy
