Running a marathon on Valentine’s Day. \u00a0How romantic? \u00a0That is exactly how I spent my Valentine’s Day yesterday. \u00a0MFH (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. \u00a0They will be going there in three weeks when I run my 50K, so we decided to let them stay home this weekend.<\/p>\n
I actually ended up being able to go with a group of some of my Mississippi running friends! \u00a0There was a group of 7 of us and we had so much fun! \u00a0There were two guys and the rest of us were ladies. \u00a0The guys thought they had it made~HA!<\/p>\n
Race day dawned a little chilly. \u00a032F. \u00a0The wind they had forecast wasn’t there! \u00a0Sweet! \u00a0It was forecast to warm up fast and it did. \u00a0I had a throwaway jacket for the beginning of the race, some arm warmers and fingerless gloves. \u00a0I also had an earmuff thingy on under my visor. \u00a0It was supposed to be a sunny day. \u00a0Perfect!<\/p>\n
They bused us the the start. \u00a0It was a point to point race.<\/p>\n
6:00 am we loaded on the buses and those buses pulled out exactly when they said they would. \u00a0It took 1:15 hours to drive to the race start and it was cold! \u00a0There were three large bon fires there for all of us to huddle around as we had an hour to wait until gun time. \u00a0Lots of porta potties of course with the inevitable long lines.<\/p>\n
Finally it was time to start. \u00a0It 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. \u00a0I ran in a thin racing singlet, shorts, arm warmers, ear muffy thingy and visor. \u00a0That was just right.<\/p>\n
The gun went off and people took off. \u00a0FAST! \u00a0I tried very hard to pace myself at 11:00 and did pretty well! \u00a0At the 2 mile mark, I passed the 1st person from my group of friends. \u00a0It was my running buddy I have told you about her in the past. \u00a0She was looking good so I gave her a quick wave. \u00a0She was trying to maintain a 12:00 pace.<\/p>\n
There was one woman that I was with for the majority of the race that I met up with at mile 3. \u00a0She was doing Galloway and doing a great job. \u00a0It 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. \u00a0She stopped and posed a little bit and went back to running. \u00a0This was happening A LOT. \u00a0I finally asked her, “Who’s your cheering section?”<\/p>\n
“It’s my husband. \u00a0This is my first marathon and he wants lots of pics.” \u00a0Ah. \u00a0That made more sense. \u00a0It was cute!<\/p>\n
I had read up before this race that the course was notoriously long. \u00a0I knew this going into the race and had planned accordingly. \u00a0I cut every corner I could. \u00a0Really! \u00a0I was trying for my first 5hr marathon. \u00a0My marathon PR was from the Chicago Marathon this past October was 5:19 and I wanted to get 5hrs pretty bad. \u00a0So, I was cutting corners. \u00a0NOT cheating, cutting corners (ie: \u00a0not going out wide on the curves but hugging the curves as close as I could~making the distance as short as possible). \u00a0One of the guys from my group was trying to PR and he was going the same thing. \u00a0More about this later.<\/p>\n
The Half Marathon point of this race was the three mile bridge spanning the Mississippi River. \u00a0It is HUGE!!! \u00a0Super pretty bridge but a real doozie. \u00a0I am weak on hills and was absolutely terrified of the bridge. \u00a0Around mile 12.50, (thank God nobody was around me at this point) y’all would have laughed at me. \u00a0I’m running down the highway shouting “Kill the hills!!!” trying to get ready to tackle that bridge.<\/p>\n
I’ll have you know that I ran that big ol’ bridge in 34 minutes! \u00a0That, for me, is great! \u00a0I was super pleased with that. \u00a0Of course, the only race course photographer was at the top of the bridge, right where you look like you’re about ready to die. \u00a0Why do races do that!?!<\/p>\n
Down, down, down the bridge and pass the sign that says, “Welcome to Mississippi.” \u00a0That sign, I wanted to kiss it! \u00a0Our race began in Arkansas. \u00a0(Half of it is in Arkansas, the last half in Mississippi.) \u00a0That sign meant we were “almost there.”<\/p>\n
At mile 19, I began passing the women from the group I came with. \u00a0People who were expecting to finish in 4:30. \u00a0I felt bad about passing them. \u00a0Kinda. \u00a0One lady in particular, super nice lady but thinks she is a pretty good runner (which she IS!) was not happy when I passed her. \u00a0Sorry. \u00a0Not sorry.<\/p>\n
Once I hit the 20’s, I began passing people a lot. \u00a0This is unusual for me! \u00a0I am not an uber fast runner so I was feeling pretty guilty. \u00a0Didn’t make me stop or anything, I was wanting to be done. \u00a0Most 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. \u00a0I was still hanging pretty close to 11:30 pace.<\/p>\n
I had been checking my Garmin (the gospel according to Garmin) at each of the mile markers. \u00a0The course was running longer and longer with each mile marker. \u00a0I finally got to the 26 mile marker. \u00a0My Garmin already read 26.30 miles. \u00a0Now, a marathon is supposed to be 26.2 miles, so this course was already .10 long. \u00a0Theoretically, I should have .20 of a mile to go, right!?!<\/p>\n
This was a straight shot to the finish now. \u00a0NO CURVES in the road. \u00a0I poured on the gas and finally crossed that finish line. \u00a0I stopped my Garmin and looked at the total distance of the race before I even looked at my time. \u00a0I was getting grumpy about how off the course was reading. \u00a026.90 miles.<\/p>\n
Unreal! \u00a0How can a course be off by so much! \u00a0I 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! \u00a0Wow.<\/p>\n
My finishing time was 5:05. \u00a0If the course would have been accurate, I would have made my goal. \u00a0*sign*<\/p>\n
In reality, I’m really not all that upset about the race. \u00a0Really!!! \u00a0It was a very well organized race! \u00a0Absolutely NO complaints at all about the organization, water stops, traffic control. \u00a0It was perfect in all those aspects. \u00a0Perfect!<\/p>\n
I placed 7th in my age division. \u00a07th out of 15 women. \u00a0I’m am happy with that!<\/p>\n
Out of all the 5 women in my group, I was the first woman to finish. \u00a0The next lady was 20 minutes behind me.<\/p>\n
I had ditched my ear muffy thingy and my arm warmers by mile 7. \u00a0It was in the mid 60’s by the time I finished. \u00a0Sweet! \u00a0I even managed to get a sunburn! \u00a0HA!<\/p>\n
It was sooooo much fun and I ran well. \u00a0Came home with all my toenails and no blister. \u00a0#HappyCamper<\/p>\n
*and the guy who was trying to BQ missed it by 6 minutes. \u00a0He did place 2nd in the grand masters and came away with a very nice award. \u00a0I felt bad he missed his BQ but happy he got such a nice award.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Running a marathon on Valentine’s Day. \u00a0How romantic? \u00a0That is exactly how I spent my Valentine’s Day yesterday. \u00a0MFH (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. \u00a0They will be going there in three weeks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10,9,6,8,5,3,7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2899"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2899"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2900,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2899\/revisions\/2900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}