Marathon Madness

The night before the race -- the kids were with Philip camping, my Dad had arrived from AZ and I was filled with nerves. Who knew that running could cause such nerves?? I set the alarm for 3:30 AM and I was off to sleep (I soon found out I was lucky to be able to sleep, as some of my fellow runners didn't sleep more than 3 hours)

I drove a carpool up to Ogden -- Paul Otto, Randilyn Jacobs, Kim Routson and Candice Stone. We traded band-aids, water and stories about our nerves all the way up. I realized my first mistake when Paul, who has run 10 marathons, got in the car. I brought the wrong bag! I thought I was being smart by bringing a throw away Target bag, well apparently the "cool" marathoners know better and bring the bag they give you at the registration booth the day before.:) Okay, so now they all know I'm a first timer. I got there and seriously everyone had their "proper bag" and I had my Target bag. Not really too embarrassing, but it gave me a joke for the morning -- to keep my mind off the feeling of needing to throw up!

We walked straight to the bus and headed up. The bus ride seemed to last an eternity! When we arrived to the cow patty pasture(literally) they had fire barrels everywhere along with a TON of porta potties. It was quite a sight!:) A few times in line for the porta potty and lots of chatting around the fire with out of towners, locals, first time runners & pros and before I knew it we were headed for the start line. It was surreal -- the moment I had been training for and yet it was like a scary ride that I just wanted to get off!!

We heard the LOUD BOOM and we were off. A SEA of runners(about 1,850) were all around us. All you could hear was feet pounding. It took a few minutes to actually cross the start line -- and we were off!

Candace, Randilyn and I started out together. We made it to about mile 10 together. We had some good laughs, did some embarrassing things, and enjoyed our run. Somewhere after 10 Randilyn decided to drop out and go on her own. Candace and I ran together until somewhere around mile 17 or 20 -- I know that's a wide spread, but it was a little blurry at that point. I dropped out and went on my own. Candace kept on pushing on -- I did a bit more walking.

I ended up walking a lot on miles 23-26 because my quads were KILLING me. I felt like my feet were going to fall off(or I wished someone would cut them off!:)) but I kept on. When I was training I kept thinking that my adrenaline would get me through to the end --- I decided that adrenaline can't keep you going if you have NONE!:) I finished with a little run and felt GREAT about it!

As a recap of how my body felt -- Miles 1-10: GREAT, Miles 10-13: pretty good, mile 14: walked a lot (it's uphill), mile 15-17: - okay, mile 17-20: hanging in there, 20-24: pretty dang tired: 24-26: I'm gonna DIE! 26.2 - GREAT!!!

The day after: SORE QUADS...but I feel great other than that. I'd better get to training for my Top of Utah 1/2 Marathon in September.:)

Thanks Dad for coming to see me finish.

Giving my family high fives on the way in ( and YES, those are kids running behind me. They started the kids K while I was coming around the corner. Kindof embarassing!:)

Is this the finish line?!?!

Pretty sure I'm walking here trying to hug & kiss my kids.

Kim, Candace, Paul, Randilyn and I