{"id":4079,"date":"2016-09-28T18:11:42","date_gmt":"2016-09-28T23:11:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/?p=4079"},"modified":"2016-09-28T18:11:42","modified_gmt":"2016-09-28T23:11:42","slug":"2016-berlin-marathon-recap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/?p=4079","title":{"rendered":"2016 Berlin Marathon Recap"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s so much to tell you!<\/p>\n

I should have blogged while I was in Germany so I wouldn’t be about ready to *pop* will stuff to tell you but I played instead and had tons of fun! \u00a0We’ll spend a few posts trying to recapture everything that happened over the past week while I was in Germany.<\/p>\n

First thing I need to mention is when I left for Germany I was completely exhausted and a tad under the weather. \u00a0The dark o’clock runs had been hard on me and I was paying for all of the middle of the night long runs. \u00a0They’re tough and they mess up my internal clock.<\/p>\n

33 days before the race, I had been diagnosed with pneumonia.<\/p>\n

One week before race day I was in the Emergency Room with a kidney stone.<\/p>\n

Two days before the race I ended up with a terrible yeast infection (TMI) from the antibiotics they gave me to help with the kidney stone.<\/p>\n

I was definitely not 100%.<\/p>\n

The night before the race I figured out how many hours sleep I could get before my alarm. \u00a0I’m sure I’m not the only person around who does that? \u00a0My internal clock was set for that much sleep.<\/p>\n

My alarm went off race day morning and I hopped out of bed. \u00a0I had been deep in sleep! \u00a0I was surprised at how deeply I had been asleep because normally I just don’t crash like that so close to the time the alarm is set to go off! \u00a0I showered, got dressed and was going to head down to the lobby for breakfast.<\/p>\n

A quick glance at my watch said, 2:45am. \u00a0What!?! \u00a0I thought maybe the battery in my watch had died so I grabbed my phone to check. \u00a0Nope. 2:45am. \u00a0That was odd!<\/p>\n

I was so fuzzy from being sleepy it took me too long to figure out that #1 Daughter had called me from Colorado to wish me luck for the race! \u00a0I had hung up on her!!! \u00a0The alarm hadn’t gone off. \u00a0I felt awful!!!<\/p>\n

After attempting to reach #1 Daughter, we ended up texting and getting a giggle out of it.<\/p>\n

Regardless, I was up and ready to run about 6 hrs before it was time to race. \u00a0Ugh.<\/p>\n

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Finally grabbed some breakfast and met up with a UK friend and we walked to the race together.<\/p>\n

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We got somebody to take our pic in front of the Brandenburg Gate before heading to the corral..and he got me with the bunny ears. LOL!!!<\/p>\n

The corrals were packed and the porta potty lines LONG. \u00a0I stood in line and then joined the mass of runners pre-race. \u00a0There was the usual party atmosphere associated with big races. \u00a0It’s always such a fun time!!!<\/p>\n

I heard them introducing the Elites. \u00a0I heard the countdown and then we all started cheering because the race had started!<\/p>\n

The air was electric!!!<\/p>\n

By the time I crossed the starting line, the Elites were almost to the 20K mark. \u00a0They are so fast! \u00a0Staggers the mind. \u00a0It really does!<\/p>\n

I crossed the timing mats, hit the start button on my Garmin and away I went!<\/p>\n

Now, the directions from my coach were actually pretty easy. \u00a0Run the first 10K in Heart Rate (HR) zone 2. \u00a0Up until 32K, zone 3 and the last 10K, zone 4.<\/p>\n

No problem, right?<\/p>\n

Wrong.<\/p>\n

From my very first step in the race, I was dizzy and off balance. That was weird. \u00a0I don’t know if it was from being so tired, the infection, jet lag or what but I had never felt like this before! \u00a0That and my HR was already in the zone 4! \u00a0I wasn’t supposed to be there until the last 10K!!!<\/p>\n

I tried everything. \u00a0I fueled and hydrated well. \u00a0I slowed my pace to bring my HR down. \u00a0Nothing worked.<\/p>\n

Something was off and my mind was desperately trying to figure out what to do about it.<\/p>\n

Around the 20K mark, I met up with this sweet man. \u00a0He was from Trinidad and he was there to check something off his #bucketlist. \u00a0He had decided to run a marathon when he turned 60. \u00a0Well, he was 60 and he got into the race and there he was.<\/p>\n

He was struggling.<\/p>\n

I slowed and started chatting with him. \u00a0Soon we were like old buddies and I decided that this guy was going to finish this race. \u00a0Bless his heart, he was having such a tough time! \u00a0We ran together up until the 32K flag. \u00a0I had told him that I was supposed to turn on the gas at that point. \u00a0He said he would stick with me as long as he could when we reached that point.<\/p>\n

The 32K flag was there and I gunned it. \u00a0He stuck with it as long as he could and we wished each other well. \u00a0Sure hope he finished!<\/p>\n

As soon as the man from Trinidad and I parted, a nice man from Poland fell into step along side me and he informed me we were running this thing in together. \u00a0Misery loves company so why not, right? \u00a0That’s exactly what we did! \u00a0We ran the last 10K together and chatted. \u00a0We encouraged each other to keep going because let’s face it, the last 10K of a marathon is NOT giggles and grins.<\/p>\n

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I still don’t know what was up with being dizzy. \u00a0That was with me the entire race. \u00a0My HR stayed higher than it was supposed to almost the entire race, BUT~<\/p>\n

I Finished!!!<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

#IRun4Aiden<\/p>\n

\"14440660_1088869281233207_1462032066482906762_n\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

#teamZensah<\/p>\n

\"13925301_1043400902446712_2671619706622173677_n\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

#AbbottWMM<\/p>\n

\"14222080_1070727679714034_2559972466485689175_n\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

#MSBlueCrew \u00a0 Discount code: MBM17MH<\/p>\n

\"13880210_1037474873039315_7255278116948477010_n\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

#areyourenegade<\/p>\n

\"4713220\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

#oisellevolee<\/p>\n

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There’s so much to tell you! I should have blogged while I was in Germany so I wouldn’t be about ready to *pop* will stuff to tell you but I played instead and had tons of fun! \u00a0We’ll spend a few posts trying to recapture everything that happened over the past week while I was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[21,6,8,3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4079"}],"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=4079"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4079\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4087,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4079\/revisions\/4087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}