for a first marathon, everything went very smoothly and just as good as one could hope for. we woke up early (3:30, i think? my memory starts to go after a week), caught a cab from capitol hill to downtown where the shuttles were taking the runners to the start in tukwila, and didn't even have to wait in line. (i heard that these shuttles got very crowded later on and a bunch of people arrived at the start late. nothing like a little extra adrenaline!) the weather was perfect too, 55 i think at start, 62 at finish. after about an hour of waiting around at the start, we got into our corrals (i was corral 9) and the race got underway.
corral 9 only had to wait about 10 mins or so to get the start...and we were off! i paced the first mile just as i'd planned, and then brought it down to 9 min/miles and stuck with it. the first 10 miles were the prettiest of the course, right along lake washington. this section had the most spectators by far and lots of interesting things to look at. the miles went pretty fast. at about mile 10, we split from the halfers and did the first out and back (out of 3) of the course, across the lake. i was still feeling really good at this point! we met back up with the halfers, went thru a long tunnel, and headed into downtown. mile 16 started and we started the second and loooongest out and back. this is where things started to go bad. my legs started cramping and mentally i started struggling. i tried to hang in for a few more miles before resigning myself to an 8 mile run/walk to the finish. i ran/walked up and down what seemed like the longest hills of my life and told myself all i needed to do was finish. mile 23 brought the third and final out and back (sadistic course, for sursies) and i tried to rally, but cried instead. with only 1.5 miles to go, i was finally able to coax my legs into running again, and i slowly made it to the finish. oddly enough, i wasn't really even happy to be finished...i think i was just so emotionally exhausted that i was too tired to feel anything. even now, a week later, i wonder if i could have done more and i'm just not sure. part of me thinks i kind of gave up, and the other part remembers how much pain i was in. i KNOW i have a better time in me and even during the race, i was already planning my redemption marathon! here's my splits from the race so you can see how my story ties into my mile paces. (mile 12 and 13 were in a tunnel).
and, my only good picture from the race. i have no idea what mile this was at, but its pretty cool that the space needle is in the background!
so in sum:
good first half
sucky second half
time: 4:30:55
ready to run another one!
No comments:
Post a Comment