I am a great hula hooper.

In one direction only.

So. That Marathon? 

It was awesome.

And not like an I-conquered-an-insurmountable-obstacle awesome.  More of a plain old fun, enjoyable, once in a lifetime, kind of awesome.

There are tons of details but I’ve got two sick kids - one with pneumonia, the other with a stomach bug - so I’m going to keep this recap brief.

Prior to start

Here I am all geared up and ready to go.  I was amazed at how relaxed I felt.  I kept feeling like I should be more nervous, and I was - slightly. But mostly, I just felt anticipation.

My favorite pic of the marathon.  It was our first weekend away together since Queen E was born, so I was feeling all in love and stuff.

I did feel a bit nervous as we started to queue up, but we drove the course the day before so I felt fairly confident about what to expect and just kept telling myself to have fun.

Early Miles 

I started in the second to last corral, so it was 12 minutes between the gun and crossing the starting line.  I just kept telling myself to run my own race as people passed me running to the start line and then in the first few miles.  I was getting passed left and right, but I just tried to focus on staying nice and slow and reminding myself that I had over 20 miles still to go.  

I trained on hills for all but one of my long runs as I knew the course was hilly, but I was a bit shocked at how much most folks’ pace slowed for the first big hill.  Though to be fair it was about 3 miles long.

I noticed in the first several miles that I didn’t feel particularly good or bad.  I had anticipated feeling excited and sorta buzzy, but I felt mostly calm.  Clear and calm.

(mile 9)

The first time I saw SRH was at mile 9.  It was great to see him there, and I quickly dumped my Spibelt. Boo hiss.  I tried, really I did. But I hate that thing.  It is a bouncy nuisance, and I just couldn’t tolerate it.  I was nervous to drop it off as I felt it had things I might need if I got in trouble, but I figured I’d see him again in 6 miles and I could get through whatever until then. 

At that point, I felt great.  Just super calm and in my body.

Around mile 10, I passed the Livestrong people who were delightful and seriously inspiring. They had the course decorated with sidewalk chalk, there were high fives, they yelled my name in encouragement, and it was just an incredibly supportive part of the course.

Middle Miles

At mile 10.8 the half-marathon split off. I had anticipated that I would feel a little loss of momentum when the course thinned out so much (2/3 of the 20,000 racers were running the half), but I actually felt fairly relieved.

Up to that point, the port-a-potties all had lines and at times the water/gatorade stations just couldn’t keep up with the volume of folks coming through. There was enough of everything, but occasionally you had to wait in line to get your hydration.

So once the course thinned out, it just felt much more relaxing.

Miles 10.8-13.4 were the hilliest parts of the course, so I knew as I turned a corner that I was going into - ostensibly - the toughest part. But I was fresh, and it turned out not to be so bad.  There was only one hill that came close to the steep hills that I trained on, so it all felt really doable.  

And once that part was over, I was over halfway through the course.  

(mile 15 - no good pics from this mile but I like this one because it shows my name and race number)

SRH was waiting for me at mile 15-ish, so it was great to see him again and get fueled up.  I had a rock in my shoe so stopped briefly to take it off and get some lube for my arms as my arms sleeves which read “this seemed like a good idea 3 months ago” were chafing and a bit uncomfortable.

Anyhow, miles 13.4-19.8 were generally uphill, but the slope was fairly small so it rarely felt like I was climbing.

Late Miles

However, an interesting thing started to happen at mile 17.  I started passing people.  A lot of people.  At the beginning of the race, I looked at my watch a lot to make sure that I wasn’t going out too fast, but after the 10 mile mark, I stopped paying much attention as I felt like I’d really settled in and could trust my body.  (Turns out that my body is ridiculously consistent with a pace between 10:20-10:40, for the entirety of the race until mile 20)  So, I’m passing folks and starting to get a bit nervous that the other runners around me know something that I don’t and that I’m going to tank soon.

But I still just felt really good so I decided to keep moving at the speed my body wanted.

Until mile 20.  

Then, my pace just started to pick up - for no good reason except that I was feeling good, and we were on a slight downhill. 

(mile 21)

SRH was waiting for me at mile 21 with more energy chews.  I said something to him like, “This is really bizarre. My last split was something like 9:26.  I’m passing people like crazy, and I shouldn’t be speeding up at this point.  I’m not sure what’s going on,” before taking off.

And it just kept feeling great.  There was effort, for sure, but this is what I looked like when SRH surprised me at mile 24.

(mile 24)

That smile is real, friends.  I felt really, really good at this point.  Calm and completely present.  My body was setting the pace and slowly picking up speed.  The crowd support was great through this part of the course, and I was able to let go of the fear of hitting the wall.  I ran mile 25 at a 9:16 pace and brought home the final 0.2 miles (which my garmin said was actually .45 miles) at an 8:46 pace.

(heading to the finish line)

As I was about 50 feet from the finish line, I heard SRH call my name.  I looked over, and there he was.  Just like he’d been throughout the race.  It was a really fantastic feeling.

And when I crossed the finish line, got wrapped in tin foil, and met him at the end of the fence, all I could think to say was, “So…that was awesome.”

 Marathon Stats

Distance:  26.2 miles 

Time:  4:35:23

Pace:  10:31 average