What a great weekend! It was kind of a crazy pre-race week (considering I had run 16 miles on the Saturday before the marathon!), but it all turned out well in the end. In terms of training, I wasn't exactly prepared (though not completely unprepared either I guess), but felt okay going into the run because I had run the 21 miles with the Chicago group three weeks before. So much for getting in three long runs before the marathon. Oh well, next time. The week before the race I pretty much ate and slept a ton. I ran 3 on Monday and 3 on Thursday and nothing else since I was trying to do anything I could to get my legs to recover from my non-existent tapering.
We arrived Saturday afternoon and went to the Expo. We ended up running out of time since it was so huge and it would have been nice to look at the clothes and listen to Dean Kamazes, but we didn't have time. After getting our bibs, verifying the chip worked, and trying on our shirts, and taking a few pictures, we signed up for the pace team. Shestin was set on running 4:20 so she decided we should sign up for the 4:15 pace team. I thought she was slightly crazy to think we could do that especially since I wasn't fully rested, but we did it. That meant that we were going to have 4:15 numbers on our backs telling the world that was our goal. That also meant that we got free pace tatoos (:-) my favorite)! On to dinner with teh group at 4:00 because everyone wanted pasta and then hanging out in the hotel and a short walk outside. Then to bed I went!
Christy, Erin, and I woke up at 5:00am to get ourselves ready. With the Funk Pandora station on, I drank my tea, ate my cereal and half banana, and got dressed. I also listened to my standard 5 songs on my ipod quickly just for good luck. Can't run a race without Breakfast at Tiffany's beforehand! At 6:00am we all met on the 14th floor for group pictures. Ben and Rick had gotten huge 26 balloons so that we would see them on the course with their bikes. They were such great cheerleaders! After our picture we all headed out to walk to the race start.
It was quite a walk to the start but we made it in plenty of time to check our stuff, get a few pictures, and get to our corall. What we didn't have time to do was go to the bathroom again. The lines were long and we didn't want to miss getting in a good spot to start since we were stuck in teh open corral. Oh well, I thought I could stop along the course if I really needed to.
At teh race start, Shestin, Jill, and I lined up as close as we could get to the 4:15 pace group. We ran into Dustin who was starting in the same places as we were too! We spent close to half an hour in the corall, but since it was so warm (68! hot!) it wasn't a big deal. We just wanted to start running. The morning before is always so nerve wracking and it all becomes much better once the race actually starts.
The gun went off and we stayed exactly were we were....We finally started slowly walking up to the start line and made it across 13 minutes after the official start. Not too bad considering how many people there were. I was determined to stay on apace from the very beginning this race since I felt I could push myself a little harder than the first marathon. I ran the first mile looking back trying to make sure the three of us stayed together. At the water stop at mile 2, it got harder to stay with the others. I think it was around mile 3 that I decided I was going to leave them and stay on pace. That meant I was losing two running buddies who could get me thtrough the race, but I'm used to running races alone and felt okay about it.
Since the weather was so warm, I stopped at EVERY water stop. I usually got gatorade, but sometimes just wanted water, especially if I had just eaten some Clif Shot Blocks. I felt pretty good and was happy that I was under the race goal time. I ran a 2:02 13.1, which was pretty exciting. At that pace, I'd be running a 4:04 marathon. Ha, not quite.
Still felt pretty good (although it was getting warmer) through mile 15 or 16. At some point I had caught up to the 4:15 pace group and passed them. I knew that I had banked about 5 minutes on my time so I started considering trying to run 4:10.
It was around mile 18 that it hit me. I had seen Jon, Rick, Kenya, etc. at Mile 1 while I was still with Shestin and Jill and then hadn't seen anyone since then. I had really expected to see them around mile 8 or 9 and thought that I really couldn't have missed them with their big balloons, but by mile 18 or so I had given up trying to scan the crowd for them. I really needed a familiar face at that point. At mile 20, I saw that I had 60 minutes to run 6 miles. That's only a 10k I thought- I can normally do that easily. But this was at mile 20 in a marathon on a hot day. My legs just stopped working at some point. It was from miles 20-26 that I once again was afraid to stop because I just didn't think I could start running again. I still stopped at every water station and felt pretty good other than my legs screaming at me. It looks like I managed to kick it back up a little on mile 26, but I knew that 4:10 wasn't going to happen. That was okay though, because I knew that I was going to make 4:15 and I knew that I was almost at the finish line. The mile 23 pump up zone with music helped a lot but was a little deciving since I had 3 miles to go. I'd say from mile 23-26, I could have really used a cheering face for me or my music. If I ever have someone to give me my ipod at mile 23, I think I would do that. I'm still not sure about having it the whole race though.
The second to last turn to the finish was brutal because it showed a hill- the only hill on teh course along with teh 800m to go. It's amazing how long 800m can feel. Even teh 400m sign wasn't too encouraging. But at some point, I did made the final turn and saw the finish line. What a great feeling! I was going finish another marathon and run under 4:15! And I was feeling pretty good!....except for my legs, that is. That last 0.2 was pretty much a blur of just trying to get as close to 4:10 as I could and FINISH!! I ran to the finish line, tried to smile for the cameras (they can never read my number anyway) and tried to find water and food.
I think the first liquid I drank at the finish was beer. The finish was a little hectic with a ton of people limping about, people handing me things, and me just wanting to sit down. AFter I took my post race picture and got my food and drink and cold towel, I went to sit on the curb. Yes, I know this was probably a bad thing to do, but I needed to SIT! And there were ice bags that were being given out to cool ourselves down, but I used them to ice my quads. Jill found me about 20 minutes after I finished and I was so happy to see her amidst all of the people. We managed to get out of the finish area and call Shestin. We eventually heard from her (we were worried she didn't finish because she wasn't answering her phone) and we started making our way over to the post race party.
Mile 2-9:31
Mile 3-9:35
Mile 4-9:07
Mile 5-9:10
Mile 6-9:31
Mile -9:14
Mile 8-9:16
Mile 9-9:21
Mile 10-9:32
Mile 11-9:26
Mile 12-9:26
Mile 13-9:31
Mile 14-9:37
Mile 15-9:20
Mile 16-9:32
Mile 17-9:50
Mile 18 and 19-19:49
Mile 20-9:42
Mile 21-9:40
Mile 22-9:43
Mile 23-10:26
Mile 24-10:22
Mile 25-10:10
Mile 26-9:33
Mile 26.2-1:53
