St. George Marathon 2009

It has taken me a while to download my pictures from my marathon but I finally have them all and I am ready to update everyone on my marathon. Three words for my marathon - IT WAS HARD or I HATED IT. :) The Sunday before my marathon I came home from my mom's house and I felt like I had a little bit of a cold. My nose was all stuffy and my throat was hurting but I attributed it to my sister's cat. However, when I got up for work on Monday I felt terrible. I still went to work but ended up coming home early and taking Tuesday off as well. If I wasn't already nervous enough for Saturday, I had a cold! I didn't do any running until that Wednesday and I ran a mile and stopped. It was hard and I felt sick. I went home and slept for 10 hours. When I got up on Thursday I felt pretty and and felt like my cold was over. I had work off on Friday because I was driving down to St. George. Got there and went to bed. I woke up Saturday morning 3:30am feeling great and ready to run.
Here is a picture of my pre-race outfit. I was really proud of it because I bought it all at the D.I. for only $7.00! I have been to plenty of races where I am freezing in the morning and I was not going to freeze for the St. George Marathon. Brighton dropped me off at the buses at 4:30 in the morning and I was off! I had forgotten my gloves and was feeling a little anxious about that but other then that, I was ready.

Pre-race: This was the best organized race I have ever been too. It was awesome! My favorite part was the music they had at the beginning of the race and the fire pits to keep you warm! It was so fun to talk to other runners and to hear so many different stories. People are nothing short of amazing.

Mile 1: I had already gotten rid of my sweat pants at the beginning of my race but I still had my jacket on. I got rid of it around mile one and it was pretty warm.
Mile 2: My stomach is starting to have cramps and my lungs are hurting. What it is just mile 2! I figure I just drank too much water to start out with and as I continue to run it will go away.
Mile 6: My lungs and stomach start to hurt but now my IT band starts to hurt. With every step I take my right leg has a shooting pain and my leg freezes up. It made me really nervous because once that starts to hurt - I am done for. I pull over to the side of the road stretch it out and say a pray. I prayed so sincerely to have any kind of foot pain (because I had been having shoe issues earlier that month) instead of IT band pain. ANYTHING - but IT band problems.

Mile 7: The big hill that everybody tells you about. If there is one goal I had for the marathon, besides finishing in under 5 hours, it was to run up this entire hill. It is a 7% grade hill and I was nervous for it. But I ran up the entire thing. It is a mile and a half long and I ran up it all! I was so happy and my IT band had stopped hurting. Sigh of relief.

Mile 8: I had gotten rid of my jacket a long time ago but my hands and arms are freezing!! I could not feel my fingers and had been contemplating about picking up some person's gloves from the side of the road. People drop clothing items on the side of the road when they are done with them so they don't have to carry them with them. So I found a pair of gloves that looked good and put them on. Heaven. Who knew something so small would bring me such joy!

Mile 13: Half way point. My lungs are on fire now and I have been messaging my stomach since mile 8. I passed the time clock at the half way point and it was the slowest half marathon I have ever run! Even the half marathon that I didn't train for had a faster time then that and I threw up after that one. I passed the clock at 2hrs and 38mins. :( So I tell myself I can step up the pace a little bit and as soon as I do that my IT bands starts to hurt again. So I slow it down to my depressing pace and press on. :)

Mile 16: I knew my Mom, sister Steph, and Brighton are going to be at mile 16. I can't wait! Finally I get to talk to somebody and see a familiar face. You are running with 7,500 strangers and a familiar face is a sight for soar eyes! I told them I should cross mile 16 at about 9:00. They got there at 8:40 and I didn't cross mile 16 until 10:10. Approximately. I felt so bad for them but was so happy to see them. Here is a picture of my Mom and Steph with the sign they made me.

I love this picture because you can see my mom cheering! She is in the blue on the left. LOL, the first thing she yelled to me was "how are you doing?" I gave her a thumbs up to let her know I was still alive. She was more nervous for the race then I was.

Here is Brighton running a little bit of it with me. He wasn't planning on running it with me but I didn't want to stop to talk and he wanted to make sure I was okay. I didn't know the race would have so many aid stations so I had Brighton bring a little first aid pack (back pack) with him just in case I needed it. So he ran with me about a quarter of a mile with me. I love him!

Pretty much every mile after this was a blur. The hills and miles all ran together. I was trying to keep my mind off the pain I was in because my lungs and stomach were pretty much the bane of my existence. I was prepared for all sorts of pain. Foot, calf, quad, back, shoulder, even IT band pain. But I had a stomach pain that would not go away and I have never had lung pain. I don't run fast enough. So the pain was awful. I was trying to keep my mind occupied by reading all of the signs that people had posted for their family members on the side of the road. One of my favorite signs said "You are all Kenyans in our minds." It made me laugh - out loud. Also there was another sign that said "Isn't the scenery beautiful?" I looked up for the first time and realized how beautiful it was. However, staring at the road make things seem to move faster so I resumed my my gaze back on the road and the marathon started to get even harder (if that was possible.) Every mile marker I saw I wanted to quite. I don't know how I kept going. I wanted to quite every step. But I didn't want to have to go home and tell everybody that I quite. So I pressed on.

Mile 20: People say the last six miles are the hardest. Well I crossed that point and I kept thinking alright how is this going to get any harder, how is this going to get any harder. And I am pleased to announce it didn't. :) I was already at the hardest point. My body was done about 15 miles ago.

Mile 21: I realized that the last six miles felt like the 6 before that, the 6 before that and the 6 before that. I felt a little depressed at the point and hey, I think I was. :) However, I kept my mind wrapped around the fact that some of my other family members were going to be at mile 24.

Mile 24: My dad and my sister and waiting there for me!!!! I couldn't be any happier. In this picture below you can see my dad. I kind of snuck up on them so they only got one picture. I debated about posting it because if you zoom in on the picture and look at my face... well it truly tells you how I was feeling. But I posted it because it was truly how I was feeling. :) At this point my sister ran a little bit of it with me and I remember the first thing I told her was "I am NEVER running another one of these. I hate it." And unfortunately at that point I was hating it. I wanted one of the shuttles to pick me up and drive me to the end so I could run across the finish. I am glad to say that they did not. I did run the entire thing.

Mile 25: My mom joined up with me to run the last mile with me. Hallelujah I am almost done. I asked her to run it with me because I would not be achieving my goal if it had not been for her. She is my hero. However, in my mind I was not thinking that at the time. I was just thinking, one step at a time. Actually I was counting to 100 as many times as I could. When my mom joined up with me I told her to just keep talking to me and to not ask me how I was doing. She told me about conference, how Brighton lost his phone (and found it) and lots of other things. I remember because I needed it. I felt AWFUL, SICK, and anything else you can think of and my mind was also turning on me! I am so grateful my mom was there because I am pretty sure I would have walked across the finish line had she not been there.

Here is a picture of me, in the white, and my mom, in the blue - almost too the finish line! I had to keep my eyes downs because the finish line was SO FAR AWAY!

I did however manage to get some energy from some where to sprint to the finish line. If you count like 30 feet sprinting. But I passed two people right at the very end. LOL, probably the only two people I ever passed. :) And if you look at the time... It is 5hrs and 23mins. SO SAD!!

Proof that I did run across the finish line. :)

I finished!!! I actually sorry to admit I wasn't happy at this point. I was very depressed with my time and feeling very sick. I stopped right after this and a volunteer caught me right before I fell over.

Another one of my favorite signs. I could see Brighton holding this up as I crossed by the bleachers where my family was standing and that is when I started to sprint.

I got my medal for finishing. My official clocked time was 5hr and 16mins.

All of my family who were able to come and support me. My sister Steph, my sister Michelle, Brighton, my Dad, and my Mom.

I had finally finished the race. My lungs were killing me, I still had stomach cramps and I had almost lost my voice thanks to my cold. It was the worst five hours of my life. :) After I made it back to where I was staying I laid on the floor until I had enough energy to move. I finally took of my shoes and behold, blood blisters. Remember how I prayed to have any kind of foot pain instead of IT band pain? No wonder my feet were hurting so bad. But I was SO grateful to have blood blisters instead of IT band pain!

I won't lie, after my marathon I was really depressed. I still think about it and kind of get discouraged. I was so sick after wards. I have never been so sick after a race. I couldn't move, my knees hurt, my calves hurt, my lungs hurts, heck, everything on my body hurt. I had a terrible cough and I had pictured my marathon going completely different. My two goals were to run mile 7, the hill, and to finish under 5 hrs. Just finishing was not good enough. I did not have extreme goals but I only finished one of them. I wanted to have fun in St. George after my race and instead I was dieing. It was Conference weekend and Conference wasn't even helping. I wanted to run another marathon just so my marathon days would not end on such a bad note. I had spent so much time preparing and it went terrible! I felt terrible! However, once Wednesday rolled around I was feeling better and it finally hit me, I just ran a marathon. I didn't do it gracefully, but I ran a marathon. I still today don't know how I did it, other then I know I wouldn't have finished had it not been for the people supporting me. Seriously, I would have quite around mile 16 had it not been for the all of the friends and family supporting me and telling me I could do it. I didn't want to let them down. So a million thanks to everyone!!

LOL, this last picture is of me finally up and moving Monday morning getting ready to drive back to Salt Lake. And that is my medal! I finished a marathon! Can you believe it? I also had to put one picture on my blog of me not sweating.

Now, will I run another one? I don't know. I wanted to so badly last week. I was looking into running the Ogden Marathon. However, know that I have my senses back, I don't know if I can do another. But only time can tell. My next race is on October 24th. A nice easy 10k!