Marathon (FINALLY!!)

26.2 in 4:35:17

Rocked it. Well, slowly rocked it. I DID IT. I finished. I ran a freaking marathon. Yay!

Marathon morning dawned dark and rainy. NO PROBLEM, SO EXCITED. Months of training lead up to this day. A little rain wasn't going to dampen my excitement. I was also pretty much over the top excited because of my outfit: new shorts, awesome new running top and my new-ish shoes. (Umm, went a little crazy and got a whole new running outfit. Thank you mom and dad!)

About two hours before the race I ate a bowl of cereal, banana, biscuit with jelly and drank a cup of tea and half a cup of coffee. I was drinking as much water as I could and then about an hour before the race I drank about 12 ounces of Accelerade. It totally worked and I felt hydrated and fueled. :)

My amazing husband drove me out to Hood River. We had a hard time finding the start, the idiot who made the map of where to go apparently had never been to Hood River and didn't actually follow his own directions, which were ALL WRONG. Talk about stressful. I could practically feel my body burning off my breakfast fuel just from those stressful 15 min. And then I started stressing that I'd get hungry during the race and feel weak and have to eat something, which I don't usually do, so I'd end up with a stomachache and have to walk and it would take forever and AHHHH!! I think my brain nearly exploded.

We ended up following some group that looked like they knew where they were going, found the start, went pee, stretched a little. It stopped raining, the sun peeked through the clouds and a beautiful rainbow made an appearance.

Starting line!!

(You can stop staring at the neon-stripe bums now.

Dang, I should have turned around and asked for posing pointers)

I had a few minutes before the race was to start so I kissed Eric, grabbed some water, stretched, hugged Eric, deep breath, walked to the starting line, stretched some more, ran back and got one last encouraging hug from Eric and then, finally, I was ready (and the announcer started counting down). Hopeful. Excited. Ready. HA!

My sis-in-law Jessie had hooked me up with a friend of hers that was running the marathon as well so while we hadn't run together in training we planned to run at least some of the marathon together. She was awesome. Such an amazing, incredible woman. She was so, so encouraging. Plus it was super fun running with someone. I really do like running alone. I get lost in my own head, listen to my music, escape. But running with someone is really fun, especially when running that long of a distance.

It's so hard to run slow when that gun goes off. Everything in you wants to leap forward and just take off. I make that mistake every race I have run (haven't been many) and didn't, couldn't make that mistake for this one. My first hour of songs were selected specially because of their zen-calming, chill effect. A little Jack Johnson, Portishead, Hooverphonic, Alexi Murdoch, Modest Mouse to start things off. It helped. Then I picked it up with some M.I.A., Blakes, Snoop, La Roux, T.I., Fratellis, Zox etc, etc, etc. Oh man, my marathon playlist was KICK-BOOTY. Seriously, it totally rocked. I totally want to just sit here and type it all out so that everyone knows and appreciates how great it was but don't worry, I won't. So worth the hours of my life it took to put it together. Such sweet tunes. Ahh, I get goosebumps just thinking about it. SO. FREAKING. GOOD.

The first three miles were immediately uphill. I was really worried that I might die at the top but I actually felt really good and it didn't hurt that I was running it at a slower pace than I have ever run a hill before. But then it started raining. We're talking torrential downpour. It was awesome. We were all immediately soaked. I was so thankful that I wore a hat (not at all part of my original ensemble but so thankful for it!). It poured on us for a couple miles.

This is when my knee started hurting. Well it started hinting to me about mile 3 but I ignored it because it wasn't too bad and I just couldn't even entertain the idea of walking that early. I figured that would happen but thought it would be later on.

Check it out: a nearly 900 ft elevation gain from mile 1 to 14. 800 ft of which are between mile 8 and 14. Ouch! Actually, I swear those downhills nearly killed me. I was run-limping (yes, there is such a thing) downhill at mile 15. I'm sure that was attractive.

Grace and I ran the first 18 miles or so together and then hit (another) steep uphill and she had some foot trouble and wanted to walk up. I thought she would end up catching up to me but something came over me at about mile 19 and I just couldn't stop running. I was on autopilot. I thought I would hit the "wall" but instead I couldn't stop. Weird. My body just took over and my legs kept moving. Plus whenever I slowed to walk through the aide stations to grab Gatorade my legs started SCREAMING and my knee hurt like hell when I started running again so it was just better to keep going.

When I hit mile 24 I texted Eric so that he would know when to meet me at the finish. I started heading down the dreaded last couple miles of downhill, turned a corner and heard some shouting, looked up and there was my family cheering me on. I think I may have actually skipped a bit, swung both arms up in an attempt at a wave and managed a loud shriek of excitement (it really was excitement guys!). Seeing Eric, Rian, Tom, Carol and Ethan gave me a huge second (or maybe eighth) wind and I ran the last 2 miles.

I'm such a lucky girl. Not only did some family surprise me at the race and meet me at the finish line but they planned a celebration afterwards with yummy food and made complete with a Costco cake (yum). A huge, HUGE THANK YOU!! I'm truly blessed. Thank you!!

OH, I did do the whole ice bath thing afterwards and thought I was going to die. Literally. I thought running for over 4 hours was bad, but soaking my feet and legs in ice might have been worse. I felt so much better after that though. I shiver now just thinking about it.

I feel a little silly talking about how proud I am but I'm going to talk about it anyway. This is my biggest accomplishment (duh, besides having two amazing boys and keeping them alive) in the past 7 years. I haven't felt totally proud of me but haven't given myself anything to be completely proud of for the past so many years so feeling pretty proud of this. Anyway...

I finished this. I trained, I struggled, I did it. I ran a marathon.

And I had FUN!! And I'm going to run another one someday. I'm totally hooked. :)