Thursday, July 7, 2011

The BIG One

Here it is, the report you've all been waiting for! The MARATHON.

So, the two weeks before the marathon didn't go the way I would've hoped. I got sick (while Peter was in Chile, go figure) and missed a run that was already a make-up run from skipping it the day before, due to children waking up way too early and me taking a nap instead of running. I guess part of the problem might have been me going to bed way too late as well, but I choose to look at it as the kids waking up too early. Anyway, I ended up taking three days off in a row the week before the marathon and then running a short run the day before my last "long run" of 10 miles. I think it worked out okay, but I felt a little jinxed. (That is not foreshadowing, by the way.) The week of the race also didn't go quite as planned because I couldn't run the day we drove out to Washington and ended up running Thursday in Anacortes, WA instead. Ideally I would have had two full days to rest my legs, but I think three would have been too many days off, and I figured my legs could use a nice stretch out. That little run in Anacortes was very beautiful, with lots of ocean views and lots of hills. If I lived where my parents-in-law live, I would be the hill running queen! Anyway, this is all the boring part... So I ended up having Friday off to rest and gorge on bread-sticks at the Olive Garden with my sister (who lives in Bellingham, very close to my parents-in-law) and mi familia.

I ended up getting to bed by 10pm, which is really hard for me to do (!!), and I didn't wake up for the first time until about 12:30am, which is a surprisingly long chunk of sleep for the night before such a big race. In fact, it's kind of weird, but I wasn't feeling ANY jitters at all until the night before, and even then, it was just a little bit. Even that morning, I was only a tiny bit nervous. Normally I have way more pre-race jitters, but I was happy to not be peeing my pants, and I wasn't complaining. And you know, I had really prepared as well as I could have hoped to. I put all the time in, I didn't short anything (except for those little schedule changes from being sick the week before), and I was ready!

When race morning came, I hopped out of bed a minute before the alarm was going to go off and got ready super fast. Fortunately/unfortunately, the light under the bathroom door woke big-baby Miles up, so I was able to nurse him before the race. I was a little concerned that if I didn't feed him it would mess with my running somehow, so I was really glad I could feed him, even if it meant he woke up before 6am. Peter and I just brought him with us to drop me off and left the sleeping girls with my sister in the hotel room. (Bringing sisters places with you is very convenient. Thanks ChickAngela!) I hadn't had any breakfast because the hotel didn't have continental breakfast (I could have sworn I had seen that they did, but I guess not...), so we needed to find a way for me to eat something before the race. The line for dropping runners off was very long, and people were already dropping runners off right by the hotel we were staying at, which was 1.7 miles away from the runners drop-off point. Call me silly, but I really didn't want to walk an additional 1.7 miles on top of the 26.whatever I was going to run anyway.

We stuck it out and managed to find me a muffin and a banana and some Gatorade at a gas station before Peter dropped me off right at the drop-off point, in front of some of the people who had started walking where we started off. It was a good thing, too, because it turned out that we had to walk quite a ways in from the drop-off point to the start line (more than 1/2 mile for sure), which was more than enough warm-up for me. On my way to the start line, I dropped my gear bag at the gear drop off trucks, used a portapotty, and grabbed some water, and as a Wave 24 runner, I jumped in with my wave when Wave 18 or so was starting, so I only had to wait about 10 minutes before I got to start. Apparently, there were 2 Biggest Loser people in my wave. I'm not sure if they were current or past or what. I never watch that show, but the fact that they all run marathons in it was actually part of what motivated me to run one.

Okay, now we're almost to the part where I actually talk about running! Just kidding, we're there...NOW! My wave started off at 7:39am. The wave start really was good--I was able to start off at a comfortable pace from the beginning. For the first nine miles, there were TONS of people all around me. These first 9 miles we were running from Tukwila, WA up to the bridge over Washington Lake, which is just east of downtown Seattle. The marathoners and half marathoners were all running together so there was plenty to look at when you combine the interesting people, the bands every mile or so, and the cheerleaders, and then add in the water stations every mile or so. My legs started to get their first twinges of achy-ness at around mile 7, which I think is about normal. After mile 9 though, the marathoners split off from the half marathoners and the people watching was not nearly as interesting. There were WAY more half marathoners! And it happened at the same time as we had to run STRAIGHT down the bridge and then STRAIGHT back, where you could see all that you had to run and what you had to do in reverse. It also happened right where Peter, et al had been planning to wait and cheer for me and they weren't there! Needless to say, at mile 9, I was a little down in the dumps. But just a little, because I was only about 1/3 of the way there! I was still mostly fresh, so there was not a ton to complain about yet. Oh yeah, I should mention that at this point, I had run the first 9 miles way too fast. And I knew it. And I STILL didn't force myself to slow down. Dumb. Dumb dumb dumb. A novice mistake that I KNEW to watch for and I did it anyway. I just felt so good!

So eventually that horrendously long bridge was over with and I got to run past that spot again that Peter, et al were supposed to be at (and they were, just below where I was, still waiting for me to run up onto the bridge...) and I did not see them! More sadness. But still not too bad. I ran in a long tunnel that was very noisy full of half and full marathoners, and then after the tunnel, I decided that all of the foreign sport drinks and the Gu had caught up with my gut and I made a portapotty stop. I didn't want to do it, but I had to because I still had over 14 miles to go and it's just not possible to run that far with a gut that feels like that. Luckily my stop was less than three minutes, including waiting in line. Wow, I'm good. Or I just had to go THAT BAD. I jumped out of the portapotty and kept running, so I could make sure I actually ran the whole thing, because I'm silly like that.

The race went past downtown Seattle after this, and everywhere I ran I kept watching for Peter, et al, with no luck. And ambulance passed in front of me and made me stop running for a few seconds. I still didn't see my family. After running through all of downtown without seeing them, I realized I probably wouldn't see them until the finish line, so I stopped really looking (but I still looked a tiny bit). After that, I pretty much bonked. I was really hoping it wouldn't happen, but it did. Starting at about mile 16, it started getting hard, and (I know by looking at my splits on my Garmin) starting at about mile 18, every mile went from under 10:30 to over 11. Textbook bonk.

The next 6 miles were almost a blur. It was very very hard and I just wanted to be done. There were more loooooooong out and backs that you could see entirely, which are so hard mentally. We ran through a tunnel that belonged in a horror movie for the sounds you heard inside, with eerie silence in between. For these 6 miles, I tried to eavesdrop on peoples' conversations to keep myself "entertained". At about mile 21, I stopped for a few seconds to stretch out a leg whose knee wanted to give up. It was give in to the knee, or stretch a bit, so I stretched and it worked. I should mention that my legs were absolutely KILLING ME. They hurt so bad. Really. Really bad. I was so ready to be done! Around this time also, I was thinking how I never wanted to run again.



Somehow, I finally made it to mile 23ish, where we got to run past the finish line (ARGH!) and do three more miles of MORE straight out and back course. But, the cool thing is that for the last 2-3 miles, I knew I was almost done, and even my tired brain was able to comprehend the distance I had remaining. It was such a familiar distance! It gave me a little boost, at least mentally. I didn't actually run any faster. Until the last mile. When I finally came in near the end, and my Garmin was already reading past marathon distance (because of all of the zig-zagging and not running the exact measured course), I turned the last corner and there was my fan club! Peter, Eleanor, Ally, Miles, Grammy and Grampy, and my ward choir director Kim McCall, who happened to be in town, all cheering for me! I smiled for like 10 seconds (although Peter describes it more as a 1 second grimace) and waved excitedly, then put my head down, choked back some sobs mostly successfully and picked up the pace to finish the marathon strong! Actually, I wasn't sure where the official finish line was (maybe just because I was so tired), so I kept jogging well after I was done. I got my picture taken, grabbed some snacks and complained a lot about how bad my legs hurt. Oh yeah, and I reveled in some fan adoration. That feels nice.







So, yeah. I finished a marathon! Well under my goal of under 5 hours, in 4 hours 49 minutes! Yippee! And my Garmin recorded it as 26.73 miles!

For those of you who are wondering what next...I'm not sure yet. I may try for an Olympic triathlon in August or September. Right now I feel a little bit aimless and I really need a goal. But I'm not ready to tackle the Ironman...yet.



6 comments:

Katie Richins said...

WOW. Wowowowowowow. Wow. WOW!!

I think I'll have to come back when I'm not so speechless.

W O W .

Unknown said...

so proud! great work amanda!

Martie said...

You're AMAZING.

You look FABULOUS!

I am so, so proud of you, sister!

Did I mention you look INCREDIBLE? At the end of the race you look like you just stepped out of a beauty parlor. Perfect.

WAY TO GO!!!!!(SO jealous!)

Real said...

Yeah, that's awesome. I can totally tell you're in a marathoner league that completely excludes me because you said you did your last long run of ten miles...But you put "long run" in quotes. I mean, that right there says it all.

You are the bomb! What amazing hard and sustained work you put in to get to that finish line. Not just that day, but for years. I was reading an old blog post of mine where I was talking about going out running and you commented that you were lazy and couldn't do what I had done. But the post actually made you want to go out and run. Oh the irony. I believe that post was 2009.

brittney said...

way to go!! Thats just incredible.

Angela said...

You were way stupendous! Although I hurt just watching you finish that race so I can only imagine how you felt...