Back in July my running friend Kim was planning to run a marathon for her 40th birthday. I told her I would do the training with her but I was only going to do the half since by golly I'm nowhere near 40!
I had a lot of other things going on in my life and running a marathon just didn't make sense. We joined the
Frisco Running Club training group to get ready. We had both run about a million and one half marathons so the training was really easy in the beginning. After awhile it started getting harder as the runs got longer but I kept running with Kim and the full group instead of the half group. Somewhere along the way I decided I'm just gonna run the full and cross this off my bucket list!
On race day I woke up around 4 am and heard the sound of rain...not just rain but POURING rain hitting the window. I can't remember the last time it rained in Dallas. Reese has rain boots that she adores and I can think of 2 times in the last 6 months I let her wear them on a completely dry day because it just NEVER rains!
I got ready and headed out to meet Kim and the group and it continued to rain. I kept praying it would stop but somewhere along the way I accepted the fact that we were gonna get wet. We accessorized with these hefty size trash bags that we had to borrow from a friend. All I had was the kitchen kind that smelled like Febreeze..ha!
The race folks were nice enough to open up this building for us to wait in until start time. We killed about 30 minutes in the bathroom line and then finally decided to head out in the rain, find the bag check and then line up in our corral. As soon as we got outside we found another bathroom with a much shorter line and decided to stop again(HELLO NERVES). After that we were about 5 minutes from the 8am start and think we will just dump our bags at the start line and go. Turns out they moved the bag check inside because of the rain so we have to run about 1/2 mile to the building, toss the bags and run 1/2 mile back to the start. We were scheduled to be in corral D which would have most likely pushed our start time to 830ish anyway but we were on the wrong side of the fence as the runners were rolling by. PANIC! We tried to make our way through the spectators to a break in the fence but finally found a place to just climb the fence with a little help from some random strangers:) So we were on the course and crossed the start mat with 3:47 on the clock. Score! We started running and despite the rain the excitement was flowing! We quickly shed our trash bags because they were just awkward. After the first mile the rain stopped or at least slowed to a drizzle. I started to get hot and took my purple jacket off and tied it around my waist. I told Kim I was going to give it to a friend who was supposed to be watching for us at mile 5. She said she thought I would regret it..she was right! Around mile 3 the rain began pouring again and it poured the entire race.
Here we are at mile 3..I was happy..Kim is looking confused:)
This is the picture on the race website of the course around the lake....
It was nothing like that at all! The wind and the rain around the lake were brutal. At times the rain was literally beating us in the face.
About 25,000 people were expected. 6000 marathoners, 13,000 half marathoners and the rest were doing the marathon relay. About 4500 ended up finishing the marathon. I think the other 1500 were probably carried away with hypothermia. It was seriously cold and miserable! My mom came to watch Reese and they had plans to come out and watch us but I nixed those plans after seeing the weather. I was afraid of having a sick kid coupled with not being able to walk on Monday.
Despite the rain I felt really really good. I think it must have been 100% adrenaline. I felt better then during most of our LONG training runs in much better weather.
This is somewhere around mile 5 because I still had my water belt..I dumped it at mile 7.
Right before mile 9 the half marathoners split off from the full marathoners as the full group heads out to the White Rock Lake. After having run this half many many times before I got a little fearful to not be turning to head back to the finish. I even said to Kim "this is our last chance to bail!" She was starting to hurt and I think she might of considered it. So I started talking..y'all know I am good at that:) I kept trying to tell her stories and I think I even sang a few children's songs (sadly that's about all I know.)
Around mile 18 I said goodbye to Kim. She was hurting from a lingering foot injury and was starting to slow way down. I was a little afraid to take off on my own since we had done almost every long run together and I still had 8 miles to go. Eight miles is a long time to be alone with the thoughts in my head..it's scary up there..haha! However, I still felt pretty good so off I went.
Everything I had read/heard about this race said if you have anyone at all who cares about you heck or even just a random acquaintance tell them to cheer you on at mile 21. Mile 21 was all uphill..they call them "The Dolly Parton Hills" and they were miserable! Fortunately I saw a familiar face right before turning to head up the hill because it was BRUTAL! It took me from mile 21 to around 23 to recover from the hills. I was cold, I was soaking wet and my legs were starting to hurt. During that time I kept hearing this guy in the crowd say "DIG DEEP". No idea who he was...and maybe he only said it once but I just kept repeating it in my head.
I started to really pay attention to the crowd around me and reading all the signs they had made. OMG there were some funny ones. Every time I saw something that made me smile I tried really really hard to commit it to memory.....no way I remember them all but here are a few that made me laugh
"You are running better then Rick Perry!" Ha!
"Running takes balls..other sports just play with them!" (Sorry momma I know it's crude.)
Chafe now, Brag Later!" (Ouch!)
"Beer misses you!" (Oh and I miss you too..hehe!)
I think this is right around mile 23. I look oddly happy..maybe because it was downhill. I like how everyone was waving at the camera.
Around mile 24 I realized that I was going to be fine and I just soaked (no pun intended) up the crowd and started to think about all the things I was going to eat afterwards. I ate two packs of cranberry flavored GU chomps during the race and if I never see those things again that would be fine with me.
My goal for this race was to finish under 5 hours and I came in at 4:53. I was happy with that time and curious about how much better it might have been had it not been dumping buckets of rain?! The jury is still out on whether or not I do another full marathon but I'm thinking that 26.2 medal looks a little lonely amongst all those mere 13.1 medals...
