I ran a marathon June 9, one of the biggest days of my life, and I got to do it with my best big brother, Phil. It had to be one of the hardest things I've ever done. I was lucky enough to run next Dana. I paced myself with her for ten miles. After the first two miles she took her ear plugs out and we had a good conversation. At mile 15 I hit my so called wall, and all my positive thoughts of "you got this," quickly changed to "you are going to die." I had some energy gel, and ran another three miles, and on mile eighteen everything decided to hurt. I suddenly felt every blister, every muscle, tendon and bone. Every step even more agonizing than the one preceding it. Past mile 18 I ran the next eight miles. My run was more like a fast fast walk. Everyone was lined up to watch us. Ha! If only...No they were forced to wait for us. I felt slightly bad, but then I remembered I was in their spot once or twice, waiting for marathoners, hoping it would end soon. Then I didn't feel so bad, and maybe someday someone will have to wait for them. Once I got to University the end was in site, for at least two miles. It was awful seeing the finish line for two miles. The last mile I jetted to the end, and one lady said "way to finish strong." At that point I wanted it over, and finished in five hours.
I passed my lovely brother on mile five, and he finished an hour later, in jeans and tennis shoes he bought the day before.
When I finished my friends Jenny, and Staci were there to see to my every need. I got a massage, and then Jenny took me home where I took a hot hot bath and cleaned up. We had to be at the buses at five which meant waking up at four, which meant just over four hours of sleep. After cleaning up I went to her house for lunch and a soccer game; watching not playing. I couldn't stay the sleep was so overpowering. I returned home where I laid in bed for the remainder of the day. I was only in pain for two days after, and ran five miles that Wednesday.
Marathon was definitely an emotional ride. I had twenty six miles to think of everything that had ever happened to me, and everything that led me up to that moment. When I got to the end of the canyon emotions were welling up. As hard as I tried tears wouldn't come, way too dehydrated, so I just smiled, and thanked everyone for the trials.
Staci asked me to run a 10 K with her, and I thought "ah, no problem." Big problem, no sleep running and hiking everywhere, and no energy. So I woke up Saturday morning at five in the morning, and drove to highland. She was still asleep, so we ended up getting to the race five minutes late. Only to find I hadn't been signed up, so fifteen minutes after the race started, we started to run. We went the wrong way, a good half mile of the wrong way. So we went back to the start line, and waited for the five k'ers. We followed them and then diverged at the ten k trail. We ran for about two miles, to the first water station and then it was down hill from there. We walked after drinking way too much water. We came across an equestrian center, that was housing little calves. So of course we stopped and played with the animals. We went in front of a house with a couple of dogs, so Staci kissed to them, and they came full throttle barking and growling, so we just kind of hoped they wouldn't attack us. We tried running off and on, but it was no use. We finished in a little under two hours. Had lunch and headed home, I slept from four that day to six the next morning.
