Ok ok ok, I've heard enough crap about not writing about the marathon, so I will. Mom, Judy, and I all had a great time visiting San Diego. It truly is a beautiful city, and I would love to go back sometime and really get the full experience. 4 days including travel and the marathon is just not enough.
Lynn (my running friend) and I were in corral 21. Your corral number was how you got lined up for the start. There were 1000 people per corral and there were 22 corrals. You are assigned your corral based on your expected finish time. As you can see, we were back with the walkers. The indignity of it!! It took us about 15 minutes to cross the starting line. Keep in mind your official "chip time" is based on when YOU cross the start and the finish and all the clocks in the pictures I will post show the gun time. You have to subtract those 15 minutes from the gun time to get my approximate chip time. I say this because I finished in 6 hours, 30 minutes, and 30 seconds. My goal, which I thought I would never meet, was to finish in 6.5 hours. I was THRILLED beyond belief to meet that goal (I'm going to forgive the extra 30 seconds, I had to stop and pee at mile 5, so I think that's reasonable.) What I especially loved was crossing the finish line after passing a dude from corral 15. HA!! GIRLS RULE!!
Did I hit the wall? Yes. Did I hit it at mile 20? No. I actually hit it at mile 23. See, in all of our training runs, we would go 2 miles further than the time before. My longest was 20. I was ok for 20, I was ok for 22. 23, however, about did me in. I stopped and walked from mile 23.5 to mile 25. Once I saw the mile marker for 25, I decided to have a strong finish so I kicked it in gear and actually had a pretty decent last mile. The joy of finishing and the adrenalin helped me to eek out what was probably about a 12 minute mile. As I crossed the finish, I held my Tiger Rag up. ORANGE NATION, baby!!!
Everyone keeps asking me if I will ever do another. Right now, the answer is I don't think so. I do think I will do half marathons- I felt great at mile 13!! I think half marys give you all the satisfaction (ok half the satisfaction) and none of the pain!
I've tried adding pictures, but this is all that took. BAH HUMBUG!!!
3 comments:
You so ROCK! My friend does the 3 Day Breast Cancer Walk and this year I am going with her to watch my godchild. Yep, we are taking her out of school for 3 days so that she can get an idea about why Mommy trains so hard most afternoons. She's in 3rd Grade and is plenty old enough to get the concept. I can't wait to cheer my friend onward with her daughter at my side. Someday maybe your best friend can do it with your long awaited baby!
Way to go - that is so awesome!!!
That is fabulous! I so admire your drive. I did the Virginia Beach RnR 1/2 last year and that was exhilerating...I can't imagine a full on marathong. WOW!!
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