Seattle Marathon, November 25th, 2007

Having done the half in Leavenworth, Mike and I tried to do the Seattle full. While the race only took several hours, the training monopolized my time for more than a month. .... and it should have taken up more time since I should have trained longer and harder. But when doing one hard run a week, usually my weekends were shot because of the time consumed and the hurt endured. But finally I got up to 20 miles and decided that was good enough just to finish. Having stuffed myself the weekend before with our thanksgiving dinner, leftovers and pasta, I was "ready." .... as ready as anyone can be for running their first marathon ever. So evidently the Seattle marathon is quite difficult, because of the hills, a fact that I would realize throughout the race. But alas, I felt good and didn't start hurting until mile 14 or so which was surprising. And then the big hills at mile 20 and beyond were just a kick in the ass, but not horrendous. With my training runs, it was hard to finish 14 miles, or 19 miles, but when running with a thousand other people, it just gives you the energy to keep going and push hard. .... I'm sure the loading up on ibuprofin beforehand and Dana (The Saint!) biking next to us giving us water and cliff shots was a factor in it as well. And the spectators were great, expecialy family and friends (as well as mike's) that came down to encourage us on. And like they say, miles 24 and 25 (and actually 26, and then 26.2!!!) were excruciating. But only a bit of suffering at the end as Mike and I came in sub 8 minute miles. Only caring to finish, 8 minute miles was the best that I hoped to do; coming in just below that passed all expectations for my first marathon.

... Onto the recovery, it was painful. By Sunday night, I was just lying on the couch with my parents still visiting. I didn't get much sleep the next two nights because everything hurt. By Wednesday, I was back to actually taking the stairs. The training schedule and my joints in so much pain told me that common sense says NEVER DO THAT AGAIN!

Mike, I'll see you in Vancouver, for the March, 2008 marathon????