It's official!

Okay, so I know I've been a slacker at blogging... but I have reasons. If you noticed my countdown to the right you might have seen, "Today is the day" for my full marathon. It's official, I have joined that small 1% of people who will ever run a full marathon. Am I Kenya? Heck no! Did I finish better than average for first timers? Yes I did! And considering all the things that did not go as planned I am proud enough of myself.

The race was about to start for all the runners and within 2 minutes or less I lost my running pack. It was holding all my energy beans and gum... or my lifeline essentials. I tried to hold it together and failed miserably. I lost control and began to cry. Amy grabbed my face and said, "Focus! You are going to be fine! You have no choice but to run without it." Emily gave me her back-up pack of energy beans and both gave me some gum. I dried my eyes and tried to shake it off. Although, it did mess with my head.

I crossed the start line and realized I forgot to start my garmin watch to keep me on track. I stopped and allowed it to locate the GPS. (I was so mad I was wasting time!) It located and I put my headphones in to find that my new iPod was not working at all!!! Boy was I ticked!!! Thank goodness I had a thought the night before to put a back-up iPod in my pocket... not my running pack. I thought that maybe I would want to toss my pack near the end but forget I had my iPod inside, so I stuck it in my pocket. However, I didn't know how much battery power it had since I never charge it before the run.

I was off and decided that I should preserve the battery life of my iPod and just try and talk to people running my same pace. I immediately found a girl I met the night before at the expo and was able to talk to her for about 10 or 11 miles. After that it was one girl here and another girl there, but only for a few miles. I made sure to drink 1-2 cups of Gatorade at the aid stations and dump 1-2 cups of water on my I was still thirsty I would drink a little more water. And I forced myself to eat the cliff bars.

Between about miles 17 and 22 I was running a pace of 9:16 and feeling great. I thought, "I can totally run this the rest of the way." And then... my iPod DIED!!! That's right, my back-up died when I had 4 miles left. Fortunately I saw Adam and Sarah at mile 23 waving my bright, hot pink poster! It was enough to get me through the rest of the race. If you want to see a blurb click here. (I am wearing a green tank top, black shorts, and a pink visor. And I swear I'm not ignoring Adam... you just can't hear my voice very well.) This was actually my favorite part of the race. It was so fun so see my poster along with a cheering section. Thanks so much for coming to support us Adam and Sarah!!!

I sprinted across the finish line and wandered for about an hour trying to find my crowd. NONE of them saw me cross! I was pretty upset at first, but now I'm just bummed. Once I found the rest of the group Amy, Emily, and I went to get our picture taken together. I saw this girl limping horribly. I said, "Oh, sweetie, you look like you're in a lot of pain." She looked up and I was thrilled to see my friend, Devry Krahenbuhl, whom I haven't seen in years! It made everything else worthwhile.

Today is the first day since the race that I feel mostly back to normal. Saturday and Sunday were the worst! Every part of my body hurt... from my head down to my pinkie toenail! After all that I still get asked, "Do you think you'll ever run another one?" And my answer is the same, "Ask me in 2 weeks. (Ha, ha.) In all seriousness, I might do another one just to see how well I could do if everything went as planned." But I only had two goals this time around. The first being to finish and the second is to do it under 5 hours. I finished, and in 4:53:07! And I'm so sorry I don't have any pics uploaded. If you would like to see the professional ones click here. There is also one of Amy, Emily, and I together, but for some reason it didn't make it to my photos. And if you are still reading I owe you a big thank you along with a candy bar!

Thanks to all my supporters! I was thinking of all of you while I was achieving my goal!