Saturday, June 19, 2010

My First Marathon!

One year ago I ran my first race in my adult life. Last September/October I started mapping out all the races I wanted to do in 2010. It wasn't long before I decided to run the a full marathon! I started training for it just after Thanksgiving.

Initially I was going to run this race with my man. It was going to be a very sentimental thing for us. Unfortunately in February he was set back by an ankle injury. He opted out of the race entirely and gave his spot to his brother. And luckily I found myself with a group of friends who all decided to run it as well! We started training together and soon dubbed ourselves the "Marathon Mamas"! What an awesome experience it has been to train with these women!

Last night we all got together for dinner! Here we all are! We had a blast!Last night I slept better than I usually do before a race! For that I was very grateful!! I woke up at 4:10, just before my alarm went off! I could not have done all this training without the support and help of my little family!! Travis gets up early for those long runs and makes me oatmeal, drives me to starting points, helps me get all my gear together... he's there 100%. He's my biggest fan! We met at the bus pick-up at 5:00! Nicole wasn't there quite yet but I had Travis get a picture before he hurried back home. Don't you love our matching shirts? We decided that we look like a pack of Skittles!I felt GREAT for the first 15 miles. My knees were sore {from the get go} but not unbearable. The weather was good for running and I was sure to stay hydrated and fuel with GU. When we came in to Sugar City Annie and I stopped at an Aid Station to see where the rest of our girls were. Stopping was the worst thing I could have done, my knees were incredibly sore after that and even slowing down made running very painful.

At mile 17 or so Annie and I made friends with a fellow runner, Jentry. We ran the next couple miles together. From 17.5-21.5 is a very difficult stretch of hills; one after the other with little to no relief! We had ran that stretch 3 times in our training though and I know that it helped us physically and mentally. The last 4 miles were slow going but I felt strong, as long as I didn't slow down or stop!

Travis met Annie and I with just about a mile to go. He was encouraging and took a few photos.
And then he ran back to wait...
Annie's husband met up with us with about a half a mile left so I let them run together and headed for the finish line! Rounding that corner and seeing my cheer section was so great! I was torn between finishing the race and just running over to them and giving them all big sweaty hugs!! It's hard to run and fight tears by the way!My little girl grabbed my hand and we finished it together! What a way to finish!!
There were some issued with my time but I'm pretty sure we worked out the kinks. I came in 5th in my age division with a time of 4:48:33.3!

We all made it! Nicole placed in her age division! Tiffany surprised us with a poster that said "Running for TWO Future Marathoner INSIDE"!!! She is 10 weeks pregnant!!! YAY!!! Love you girls!!!Overall this race was pretty emotional, sentimental and fabulous! I have a bone to pick with the lack of promised HammerGel {good thing I brought my own GU}, piddly awards & raffle afterward {last year ROCKED}, a lot of timing issues... but those things aside, I had an amazing time. It was all I hoped it would be. I'm already super stoked for my next marathon in July!

2 comments:

Tiffany said...

WAY TO GO! I love it. Inspires me to think about a full mary next year. That's awesome your friend did it at 10 weeks too!

Paxton said...

so cool! congrats on your first marathon! i am SO proud of you! you really are inspiring! thank you!
don't worry i'm still running 3-4 times a week, just not posting it, i've been a little tired for the computer lately!
love you lady! you look FABULOUS in those pictures :-)

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