SO: on Saturday, October 4th, I finally ran my marathon. It was the hardest physical thing I have done in my whole life so far... possibly because I trained in flat, 700 feet above sea level Missouri, and I chose to run the Mt. Rushmore marathon in the Black Hills of South Dakota at 5,000 feet. Well, to make a long story short, the marathon was painful! My race had 62 finishers, (18 of which were women). Only 9 people ran the 26.2 miles in less than 4 hours! I managed to heave myself over the finish line at 4:30.39, and I was the 4th woman finisher, and I was 20th overall! LOCO! My quads and achilles are SORE! The results can be viewed at:
http://mtrushmore.allsportcentral.com/results/results.cfm?EventID=18257
The beginning of the marathon was cool and pleasant, and I was happily smiling at Jeff, who was my photographer-- he drove all over the place and sprinted around to get over 100 pictures of my first (and last?) marathon-- what a devoted fan!
I was so cheery at the beginning of the marathon that when I saw a little man taking a picture of the racers in front of him, I offered to take his picture... during the race, while we were both running! He was grateful.
Mile #6: Pain has not set in quite yet...
Mile #15: Heavy, sore legs won't move very fast...the sun came out, and it got up to the mid 70's! I started taking 2-3 minute walk breaks at mile 17 up in the trails of the mountains. Walking was not much easier than running-- it just took longer!
Mile # 22: a nice man hobbled along with me and chatted far too cheerfully--this was his 28th marathon! I managed a few conversational grunts and "oh's" but that's about it.
Mile #26: The finish line is near...finally!
There I go crossing the finish line. (the clock was pointing the other way for some reason). Finishing did not feel good at the time-- I had been restraining sobs of aching pain for about an hour or more, (you can't breathe when you're crying), and they came out at the finish. Once I stopped running, the pain did not stop! BUT, after a shower and an ice bath and a nap, (unfortunately the nap occured half way through the afternoon session of General Conference),
I felt much better.
Maybe the elevation profile above helps illustrate the pain in my quadriceps!
Well, I made it! I told Jeff right after I finished: "I am NEVER doing that again!" but now that I think about it, in a few years I may be tempted to train for another marathon, but I will definitely find a FLAT course to run!
