Come and gone

So the marathon has come and gone. I'm not going to lie, it was tough. I will give a quick recap of what happened.

We arrived in Philly about an hour before the race began. Walked over to our color corral (line up by estimated finish time). At 7:00am they let the first section start. We didn't get our go ahead until 7:27am. As we were walking up to the start line my hubs saw 2 people from last season's Biggest Loser (7), Damien and Nicole. They were standing right next to us. I was so excited I had to talk to them. It's pretty cool seeing someone from TV right next to you, even if they aren't big name movie stars.

So, we start the race. Cruising along at a 10something pace. We didn't want to go too fast and burn out at the end. We started in front of the Art museum(Rocky's steps) and ran past the LOVE statue, through Chinatown, down to Penn's Landing, back up South Street, over to Drexler University, up to the Zoo (did you know the Philly zoo is America's first zoo?), down along the Schuylkill river (pronounced skoo-kull) and back to the art museum. That was the first 13. We were feeling ok. Slowest we've ran a half marathon but we were pacing ourselves.

Mile 14, the worst thing to face knowing you have another whole half marathon to run is a hill. Mile 14 was just that. It whipped me. Hubby pulled through and ran it but I had to walk. At the top my Dad and Step-mom were there to cheer us on. That was nice. Mile 15 was downhill. Normally this is awesome but my knees were not loving this. See, once your knees start hurting, you start praying that there are no more downhills, you actually want uphills. It's scary but true. Miles 16-19 I had to favor my right leg because of my knee. Somewhere in there I caught hysteria. Literally I began laughing so hard I couldn't run because it made all my torso muscles cramp. I was also crying from laughing so hard. I think this might have been my body's way to relieve the stress and pain. Once I was able to stop laughing my right leg felt better and I wasn't as tired.

We keep going through 19-22 hurting with each step. You don't want to stop though because walking hurts more than running. At mile 24 my left knee decides to flake out. I can't run on it, I can barely walk on it. It is extremely frustrating. I put my head down and focus on how I am walking so I don't tweak it and get the shooting pain. My hubs was so supportive the whole time. He was doing really well and was being sweet and staying with me. I started praying and asking God to let me finish the race running. I did NOT want to finish walking across the finish line. That felt like it would be a failure and anti-climactic finish. At mile 25 I looked up and saw balloons. These were the balloons of the 5 hour pacer. I couldn't believe it. We were ahead of her the whole race and she passed us. I looked at my hubs in disbelief and said let's try running. 1.2 miles left, 17 minutes until the 5 hour mark.

Praise God, I could run!. My knee wasn't doing that stupid thing it does, my back didn't hurt, I could breathe easily. My hubs was feeling good too. God answered my prayers! We finished the race running across the finish line. It's funny how you just start going faster and faster when you can see the end. It was so great to be finished! 4hrs 58mins. We beat the 5 hour mark.

My hubs explained it best when he was asked how his body felt. "It's a feeling in my legs that I've never felt before." People ask us if we will run another... we don't know. During the race we hated it. After the race you think back and it doesn't seem that bad. If my knees were not so crazy, I probably would... and it would probably be within the year. For now, half marathons are really nice. I think I will stick with those for the next couple races.

Maybe I will work on setting a PR in that distance. Do you think I can break 1hr 45min?

Maybe I will try!