Reflections on a Marathon

Its been nearly 2 weeks since 10-10-10 and the big marathon weekend. I have to admit, the whole experience was much more emotional than I had thought it would be, and I have had lots of thoughts and feelings swirling around in my head since then. I am finding it difficult to sum it up in just a few words. It was exhilarating, exciting, daunting, hard, HOT, life-changing, painful, gratifying, disappointing and completely draining... all at the same time.

I will spare you too many details, but here's what happened in a nutshell. At 5:45 AM I walked to a neighboring hotel to meet Karol and Jenny who were running with me. I had a tank top on and was sweating on the way over.... this was NOT GOOD. Then, the hotel did not have breakfast out like they said they would, so I didn't eat as much as I normally would. NOT GOOD. I got to the start line and it was sooooo exciting. So many people. It took us almost 30 minutes to shuffle across the starting line after the gun went off.

The first few miles were great, but I noticed the heat as early as mile 8. At mile 13 I remember telling Cheryl (my sister) that I would love a cup of ice next time I see her. By mile 15, I began taking more walking breaks and the course all of the sudden became downright hot, with no shade. People were starting to get tired, lots of business owners had hoses on and would literally hose people off as they ran by. I stopped into a Subway on the route to fill my water bottle with ice! At mile 19, I picked up Ron, a friend of mine who was there to watch. I had decided by then that I needed to walk the rest. If I had kept running, I doubt I would have finished. The bank clock when I ran by read 86 degrees. No hope for those of us who are slower runners anyway..... I decided to chalk it up to a good experience, try to meet some new people and enjoy the finish, instead of pushing so hard that I would get sick or worse.... So, we walked. and we walked. and we walked. I really enjoyed it up until about mile 23 - then the blisters and the pain set in. I was tired and I wanted it to be over.

I ran the last .2 miles across the finish and it was very emotional. I am sad that the race didn't meet my expectations - all those hundreds of miles that I trained and not much of a result..... but so happy that I finished and I had so many wonderful people there to watch and greet me at the finish. I have no idea what my finishing time was, except that it was at least 1.5 hours slower than I thought I'd be (based on my 20-mile time).

I am sooooo glad its over, but am already planning my redemption. Apparently once you are bitten by the long-distance running bug, this tends to happen. What if I had fueled better that morning? What if it were cooler? What if I do two 20-mile training runs instead of one? ...... better give it another try so I can find out! I learned a lot this time and hopefully I can have the opportunity to do it again someday. Stay tuned to see where the next marathon will take me!