Monday, January 14, 2008

P.F. Changs Marathon

I ran a 3:25 Sunday which was a PR for me by 12 minutes! I'm pretty impressed with myself that I improved 12 minutes in 6 months. Brian ran a 3:10 and qualified for Boston too!
We carpooled to the start line with Ted, Ken and Jorge and arrived at about 6 a.m. I was given a red bib for "local favorite" racers, which I have no idea how I got chosen for, so I started in the corral with the Kenyans. This was very strange, but cool! After they took down the corral barriers I scooted back to the 3:20 pacer and started running with that group. I was going to start with the 3:30 group, but I was too excited to go for 3:20! I felt awesome running 7:38 pace and passed my family at mile 5 with a smile on my face. I had my gels and was fueling correctly for the first time - every 6 miles. Everything was awesome until mile 20. This is my usual downfall, but it wasn't as bad as it normally is. I slowly watched the 3:20 group get farther and farther ahead of me as I slowed my pace. With every mile I kept telling myself "I cant do this anymore, it hurts too bad" But when I kept running and seeing each mile marker I told myself I had to finish. I pushed through those last painful miles and crossed the finishline in 3:25:33, which is still pretty AWESOME!
My family was there and they carried me to the family reunion area where Brian was laying on the grass and all our friends who ran the half marathon were there. It was an awesome feeling to say I ran a 3:25. I placed 12th in my age group out of over 300 and I was the 97th woman to finish. The East Valley Tribune said I was the 8th East Valley woman to cross the finish line, so that was pretty cool too!
Now I can barely walk, but am looking forward to recovery and getting back out on my weekend bike rides, back into the pool and getting some tempo runs in for the upcoming Ragnar Relay!
:)

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