THE MARATHON!

Since I'm behind on blogging, I'll start with the most recent event and work my way back.  Yesterday, I ran my first marathon!  I decided on the Cowtown marathon about 4 months ago and began training.  4 months later it was game time and I really wasn't as nervous as I thought I would be.  I knew I had trained hard, the weather was perfect, and I had friends to help me along the way. 
Ester, Amy, Dusty, and Kyle (my little bro) were going to meet up with me every 5 miles or so, to give me supplies and take turns running with me.  They did an awesome job, and I couldn't have done so well without them. 

I met up with my crew around mile 9 and they dropped off Amy, and I needed to take a potty break (thanks Dusty for taking this picture).

Amy ran with me for 10 miles (the crew missed us at one of the stops) but she was a huge help and kept me going when I had a little freak out around mile 18 . . .let me explain. 

The Cowtown marathon provides pacers for the race, for example, I wanted to finish in 4:20, so I found a pace coach that was suppose to ensure that I would finish in that time.  His name was Patrick, at least that is what his shirt said.  I tried talking to Patrick that morning so I could introduce myself, but he either didn't hear me or decided to ignore me.  I then tried again, by asking Patrick a question.  . .still no response.  So I gave up, and just decided to follow him, but not talk to him. 

When Amy joined up with me, I told her about Patrick's friendly demeanor, so she tried talking to him, and still no response.  We were beginning to think maybe he just couldn't hear, when someone else ran up to him, asked him a question, and he just started talking away.  So, we came to the conclusion that Patrick just didn't like us (it was a good distraction at least).  Around mile 17 Patrick started really picking up the pace, and I could tell he was going to fast.  I told Amy I didn't feel like we were that far off the pace, and this was just too fast for as many miles as we had left (I was far more stressed while this was happening than my words are expressing).  Amy was calm and said it was alright, we'll just keep him in sight, and just keep doing what we were doing.  I guess Patrick finally came to realization that he was going to fast and had left his group behind, because he saw the mile 18 marker and came to a complete stop.  Amy and I ran on by, thinking what in the world is going on here.  At that moment we decided to just trust our own bodies and listen to what our internal pace clock was telling us.   (I'm wearing a teal and black shirt and Amy's in red)

Amy ran with me until around mile 21 where I picked up my sweet husband Dusty (who was soooo excited about running--for those of ya'll that know Dusty you should know I'm kidding).  Around mile 22 we picked up my brother and we were in the home stretch.  Amy was great about talking to me and keeping me distracted.  Dusty and Kyle on the other hand needed a little encourgement.  I finally told them to start talking to me, because I was hurting quite a bit around mile 23.  Dusty tried, but Kyle really picked up the slack and did a good job encouraging me. 

Long story shorter. . . I finished!  My time was 4:18 (9:52 pace).  I got 22nd out of 68 women in my age group.  99th out of 368 women, and 488 out of 1194 people.  I was proud of myself, but most of all, greatly appreciative of all the support from my friends and family.

Yes, I'm eating Blue Bell ice cream, but after 26.2 miles, you can eat what ever you want!!!