I did it! I ran my THIRD marathon! Wow! And it was fun and the time seemed to fly by as I got to share it with good friends. I was happy that I got to run the whole thing pretty much with Erin. She is so fun to run with!
So this morning I started out feeling kind of anxious about the race. Melanie and Rachel got to hear all about it on the way up. I think it was just because I hadn't had a marathon since last December and had dealt with a few injuries this year to take care of so was hoping they wouldn't come out and bother me. It was raining buckets too all the way up there. I though OH NO. It's going to be a pouring rain slogfest for 26.2 miles.
We got up there though and the rain let up. It was a nicely overcast day though which was delightful. We saw Erin, her husband Chris, Amara and Maria. Then we saw Cheryl Hickock and that was fun too! In fact the whole day was kinda like that. A big party. So I got all together and Erin, Chris and I got ready to go at the start line. We started and Chris took off. He was pretty speedy. I stuck with Erin. I was doing this as a training run for my Flatrock 50k in a month and a half and she also was doing it for her 50k that same time. So we started running together. She thought I was racing it but I said no. I was going to just take it easy and get the miles in and use it as prep for Flatrock.
It was really fun running with a friend! I am usually a runner who ends up solo on races and so it was really cool this time to have someone along to share the experience with. It was a nice little rain that guided us through the woods...just a little misty rain. It felt nice. We were running on the causeway and there was a "famous person sighting" Namely Persistent Runner! Erin and I were running down the causeway for the first time and this guy came along...no one we had ever seen before...and yelled "Are you Persistent Runner? LOVE YOUR BLOG!" and off he went. WOW. It was like being at a club with a celebrity..."yeah so i am with her so everything is complimentary right? She will sign your camelback if you play your cards right." It was super cool.
We ran into a whole pack of people we knew next: First Jonathon Lee in his green shorts and top, running backwards and chatting with us. Then we had a Rachel sighting, a Miranda sighting and then ran into a whole pack of people..actually they ran into US: Maria, Amara, Cheryl. We ran with them for awhile and it was so much fun to be part of a big, noisy fun group!
And then we were coming around a corner and HOLY COW we saw Christy Victor just standing there in her BARA shirt! Whahooo! What a sight for sore eyes. It meant so much to me to see her there. :-) We saw Chris fly by. Then someone came by singing and of course it was Melanie. that's what friends are for! I saw my buddy Jen. So we pretty much leapfrogged around for awhile and then we got back to the finish-restart line. We just said Okay now we are pressing the "restart" button. That was just a warm up now we run our race.
So then it was just me and Erin again. We saw some more people we knew: Chris again, Miranda again. I also can't say enough about Planet Adventure! They are a class outfit. The aid stations were always well stocked, the volunteers and employees were constantly cheerful, supportive and awesome to us! When we ran into the aid stations we got applause, power arches, joking and people making sure we were well hydrated and taken care of. I felt so much for these folks. Really made our day!
Around mile 20 we started to count things off like "here is the shi** road one". "Here is the shi** road two. Here is the shi** muddy part." Yeah it was kinda like that. I realized that flat coke is NOT my friend. So not going to do that again. The main thing was I felt GOOD. I was sore. Heck YES! You cannot run more than 20 miles and not be sore. But I felt like I was doing fine and that tacking on another 6 or so miles to finish an Ultra would be fine.
Oh and at this point we also started to compare who we thought could tackle this the best: Batman, Aquaman, Wonder Woman Yes it was late in the race and we were getting...ahem...more silly if that was possible. Then we came into the finish line and all was rainbows and unicorns and our friends were there cheering and taking pictures and it was a great end to a great race!
Third Marathon Down! Ready for Flatrock!
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