Well, I ran my first marathon on May 1, 2011. I know this post is over a month late, but when you're a teacher, May is a busy month! So, without anymore waiting, here it is.
My running buddy, Bobbie, and I decided we wanted to do the Flying Pig Marathon in Cincinnati. We gave ourselves plenty of time to train for it, but of course, things don't always go as planned. On April 3, we ran a half marathon in which we both set a personal record. The very next day, I was hospitalized for a fever of 105 and seizures for which there were no answer. It ended up that I had strep, but was showing no symptoms, which can apparently be pretty dangerous. So, due to the illness, I missed out on two weeks of training and never was able to complete a 22 mile long run.
But, the show must go on. We left on Saturday afternoon in plenty of time to be able to spend some serious time at the expo. But, once again, there was obviously another plan. We got stuck in horrible traffic about 20 miles outside of Cincinnati. What should have taken us 20 minutes, took 2 hours. We were able to spend about an hour at the expo.
Upon waking on marathon day, the rain was falling and we had a walk of about one mile to get to the start line. It wasn't raining hard, just little drizzle. Here is a picture of us walking to the start line.
We found our corral and awaited our turn. We started the race and I felt pretty good. I knew going in that I wasn't going to do as well as I had originally planned, due to the fact that I missed out on some serious training. But, when I felt pretty good the first 9 miles, I thought that maybe I could meet my goal of finishing in under 5 hours.
We were originally told that as long as we trained on Bluegrass Pike in our hometown, that we would be able to handle the hills of Cincinnati. Well, that was a lie! :) No hills that I've ever run will ever compare to the hills that I ran while running in downtown Cincinnati and through Eden Park. Whew!
The worst part of the race for me? At about mile 4, we crossed a bridge from Ohio into Kentucky. As we were crossing the bridge, I felt nauseous. I am not one to feel this way while running, so I was a little concerned given that I hadn't been feeling very well the weeks before the race. I looked around and realized that it wasn't nausea. The bridge was bouncing up and down! Yes, you read that right. The bridge was bouncing up and down from all the runners. A little scary if you ask me.
One of the things that I loved about the race was the fact that our names were printed on our bibs. So, as we are running through the streets of Cincinnati, there are tons of people cheering for you, even though they don't know you. This definitely kept my spirits up when I began to hit that wall at about mile 11.
Crossing the finish line!
I reached the halfway point at 2:20:46, which is faster than the first half marathon I ever ran, so I'm okay with that. I crossed the finish line at 4:55:15! Almost five minutes under my goal of 5 hours. Not only did I finish, but I finished in my goal time. Will I ever run another marathon? SURE! If you asked me that when I crossed the finish line, I had a different answer. I will never run the Flying Pig again, but given a course that has less hills, I might see another marathon in my future!
