Running a marathon on Valentine’s Day. How romantic? That is exactly how I spent my Valentine’s Day yesterday. MFH (My Favorite Husband) stayed at home and took care of Paxton and the two cats (Kali and Castro) so we wouldn’t have to take them to Reggie’s House. They will be going there in three weeks when I run my 50K, so we decided to let them stay home this weekend.
I actually ended up being able to go with a group of some of my Mississippi running friends! There was a group of 7 of us and we had so much fun! There were two guys and the rest of us were ladies. The guys thought they had it made~HA!
Race day dawned a little chilly. 32F. The wind they had forecast wasn’t there! Sweet! It was forecast to warm up fast and it did. I had a throwaway jacket for the beginning of the race, some arm warmers and fingerless gloves. I also had an earmuff thingy on under my visor. It was supposed to be a sunny day. Perfect!
They bused us the the start. It was a point to point race.
6:00 am we loaded on the buses and those buses pulled out exactly when they said they would. It took 1:15 hours to drive to the race start and it was cold! There were three large bon fires there for all of us to huddle around as we had an hour to wait until gun time. Lots of porta potties of course with the inevitable long lines.
Finally it was time to start. It was close to 40F by gun time and I knew the jacket would be too warm, so I ditched it and the gloves even before the race began. I ran in a thin racing singlet, shorts, arm warmers, ear muffy thingy and visor. That was just right.
The gun went off and people took off. FAST! I tried very hard to pace myself at 11:00 and did pretty well! At the 2 mile mark, I passed the 1st person from my group of friends. It was my running buddy I have told you about her in the past. She was looking good so I gave her a quick wave. She was trying to maintain a 12:00 pace.
There was one woman that I was with for the majority of the race that I met up with at mile 3. She was doing Galloway and doing a great job. It wasn’t long before I noticed a red car zoom up ahead of us and a guy hop out of the car and start snapping her pic. She stopped and posed a little bit and went back to running. This was happening A LOT. I finally asked her, “Who’s your cheering section?”
“It’s my husband. This is my first marathon and he wants lots of pics.” Ah. That made more sense. It was cute!
I had read up before this race that the course was notoriously long. I knew this going into the race and had planned accordingly. I cut every corner I could. Really! I was trying for my first 5hr marathon. My marathon PR was from the Chicago Marathon this past October was 5:19 and I wanted to get 5hrs pretty bad. So, I was cutting corners. NOT cheating, cutting corners (ie: not going out wide on the curves but hugging the curves as close as I could~making the distance as short as possible). One of the guys from my group was trying to PR and he was going the same thing. More about this later.
The Half Marathon point of this race was the three mile bridge spanning the Mississippi River. It is HUGE!!! Super pretty bridge but a real doozie. I am weak on hills and was absolutely terrified of the bridge. Around mile 12.50, (thank God nobody was around me at this point) y’all would have laughed at me. I’m running down the highway shouting “Kill the hills!!!” trying to get ready to tackle that bridge.
I’ll have you know that I ran that big ol’ bridge in 34 minutes! That, for me, is great! I was super pleased with that. Of course, the only race course photographer was at the top of the bridge, right where you look like you’re about ready to die. Why do races do that!?!
Down, down, down the bridge and pass the sign that says, “Welcome to Mississippi.” That sign, I wanted to kiss it! Our race began in Arkansas. (Half of it is in Arkansas, the last half in Mississippi.) That sign meant we were “almost there.”
At mile 19, I began passing the women from the group I came with. People who were expecting to finish in 4:30. I felt bad about passing them. Kinda. One lady in particular, super nice lady but thinks she is a pretty good runner (which she IS!) was not happy when I passed her. Sorry. Not sorry.
Once I hit the 20’s, I began passing people a lot. This is unusual for me! I am not an uber fast runner so I was feeling pretty guilty. Didn’t make me stop or anything, I was wanting to be done. Most of the people I was passing had started the race with 8 and 9 minute paces and now were doing good to get 13 and 14 minute pace. I was still hanging pretty close to 11:30 pace.
I had been checking my Garmin (the gospel according to Garmin) at each of the mile markers. The course was running longer and longer with each mile marker. I finally got to the 26 mile marker. My Garmin already read 26.30 miles. Now, a marathon is supposed to be 26.2 miles, so this course was already .10 long. Theoretically, I should have .20 of a mile to go, right!?!
This was a straight shot to the finish now. NO CURVES in the road. I poured on the gas and finally crossed that finish line. I stopped my Garmin and looked at the total distance of the race before I even looked at my time. I was getting grumpy about how off the course was reading. 26.90 miles.
Unreal! How can a course be off by so much! I had paced myself for a 26.50 distance to get my 5hr marathon because I KNEW the course was long but having it be off that much! Wow.
My finishing time was 5:05. If the course would have been accurate, I would have made my goal. *sign*
In reality, I’m really not all that upset about the race. Really!!! It was a very well organized race! Absolutely NO complaints at all about the organization, water stops, traffic control. It was perfect in all those aspects. Perfect!
I placed 7th in my age division. 7th out of 15 women. I’m am happy with that!
Out of all the 5 women in my group, I was the first woman to finish. The next lady was 20 minutes behind me.
I had ditched my ear muffy thingy and my arm warmers by mile 7. It was in the mid 60’s by the time I finished. Sweet! I even managed to get a sunburn! HA!
It was sooooo much fun and I ran well. Came home with all my toenails and no blister. #HappyCamper
*and the guy who was trying to BQ missed it by 6 minutes. He did place 2nd in the grand masters and came away with a very nice award. I felt bad he missed his BQ but happy he got such a nice award.