I was having trouble falling asleep Friday night cause my brain just wouldn’t shut off. I ended up waking up at 2 am marathon morning from a dream about being late to the starting line and everyone had already left. I knew this wasn’t going to happen cause I had set both my phone alarm and clock alarm just in case. I woke up at 5:30 am before my alarm went off and decided to get up and start getting ready.
I had 3/4 of a cliff bar (I left the last part of it on the bench while I got dressed and my dog decided she was hungry and wanted to eat the rest of it) and a 1/2 a banana with some peanut butter for breakfast.
As I walked outside at 7 am to to drive to the starting line it was rainy. I posted on Facebook that mother nature decided to remind me of Tacoma since it was raining.
It was cold, rainy and windy at the starting line and I was second guessing my clothing decisions. The weather had said it was going to be in the 60/70s during the race so I decided to just throw on my arm sleeves.
I waited in the truck till about 5 minutes before the start with Gene and Dash where it was nice and warm.
The start was at 8am. The announcer said there was about 250 full and 1500 half runners (they were starting 30 min after us). There actually wasn’t really a starting line. It was just a line spray painted into the ground.
Before I knew it we were off and running. As we turned the corner about .5 mile in the sun was suddenly out and I was warm already so I took off my arm sleeves and hung them off my spibelt (love that thing!) A girl in front of me took off her long sleeve and another runner told he was worried at how warm it was already.
About a mile in I was thirsty already, not good the next water stop wasn’t until mile 3. I quickly walked thru the water station and kept on going. We were running near the river so there was a light breeze and some clouds that felt good.
I was reaching the half way point and knew I should be seeing Gene soon. I looked out for him and saw his truck parked along the road. I didn't see him where I though he would be so I kept looking out for him. I never got to see him which was a little hard mentally but I tried not to get discouraged. I guess I was just too fast :) I crossed the half at 2:01 and was feeling good still just really thirsty.
The last few miles is where it started to get really tough. The sun was really beating down and the temps where up around mile 16. We had to run past the fairgrounds around mile 19 and there was a swap meet going on or something so all I could smell was greasy fried fair food that was making me nauseous. I had also been seeing people run towards me for what seemed like miles already but it seemed like the turn around was NEVER in sight, this was really tough mentally cause I just wanted to turn around and head back already.
At mile 20 I started to get a really bad side ache that I just couldn't run thru. I walked for a little bit and kept going. I wanted to just keep drinking water cause I was so thirsty. Even though I would take in water or Gatorade at every station it still wasn't enough. The side ache was also persistent and getting worse as the race went on. I wanted to run faster but my legs didn't want to move any faster.
Miles 22-24 was a lot of run/walking. I was able to consistently fuel with energy chews at miles 6, 12, 18 and 22.
When I reached mile 25 I didn't want to walk and kept telling myself I was almost done I can walk when I cross the finish line. At mile 26 and told myself to "embrace the pain", easier said than done. I managed to hold a 9:34 pace this last mile but it wasn't easy my side was hurting bad. As I made the turn into the park the last .2 were the toughest cause the path was a big U so it looked like the finish line was so far away. I wanted to walk so bad but I sped up which really made the side ache worse and hard to breath.
I finally saw Gene and my friend Adam on the sideline so I waved and pushed it to the finish line crossing in 4:17:33. A 31 minute PR off my first marathon.
Not really sure why the clock reads 4:21 cause I crossed the starting line a few seconds after the gun went off. But my garmin time was only a second off of the official time.
I wanted to get somewhere between 4 and 4:15 cause I knew I was capable of this based on my training runs but I am still 100% happy with the time that I got because I ran uninjured which was my number 1 goal.
This post is long enough already so I'll post some after race pics tomorrow!
