As race day neared, I started doing longer runs, and had a family member or a friend accompany me on a bike while I would run 9-12 miles. Those runs went smooth. The funnest run was starting at my house and then running to the other side of our town and passing by my mothers house 🙂
Race day comes and I felt really prepared. I didnt think it was going to be a big deal. Because I had run 12 miles the weekend before. Well…not so much. I dont know if my blood sugar made me tired or if I just wasnt really ready or if I just pushed myself too hard. But when I got out there, everything I had trained for was out the window.
I ran a nice easy pace of 12 minute miles for the first 6 miles. But after I hit the halfway mark, I checked my bloodsugar. It was over 200. I was so tired. I just wanted to walk. But the friend I was running with wanted to help me reach my goal. She kept me going. After the halfway mark, it became a race. It started out as a fun run… just to see if I could run 13.1 miles. But we started to pass people up. We would pick them out and set a goal to pass them up. And it wasnt until we got to this one woman around mile 8 that I started to crash. She was wearing a pink sweater. And everytime we got close to her to pass her up…she would run again. But at the water stops she would walk and drink water. So we passed her finally. But it wasnt until we ran a 10 minute pace for about a mile straight. That was just way to fast for me. Once we passed her we had to keep running because apparently she was trying to pass us.
That last mile seemed to never end. I kept trying to walk and my friend said, you did not just run 12 miles to walk across that line!!! RUN! so I ran. Everything in me hurt. My knee, my foot, my rib cage. I swore I would never do it again…. I questioned myself over and over…why do I torture myself?
And then it was over. 2 hours and 33 minutes and 56 seconds. I wanted to finish in 2:30. I will take 2:33:56 🙂 Not bad.
I compare it to having a child. It takes time to forget the pain of labor before you have another. I want to run a full marathon before I am 40.
For now, I am gonna take a break and enjoy my 13.1 sticker on the back of my van!