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March 5, 2008
The Marathon
Sunday morning arrived... far quicker than I thought it would.
I got up and while I caught a shower, Andy went to wake the poor girl that was on duty at the Inn to get me some boiling hot water for my oatmeal. I felt so sorry for her.
I got into my clothes and .... attempted to show my enthusiasm for the run that was about to take place. Andy decided that 
the world needed to know....
At 5h20, Jeff was there to pick me up and head to the start line. I had everything. My belt was in my hand with a good amount of Gatorade Endurance Mix in it. I had honey, I had some anti-shafing gel, I had water, I had everything that was required.
As we drove towards Universal Studios, my stomach started with the familiar fluttering of butterflies, but that quickly went away as I became more excited about starting the marathon. As we arrived at the parking area, it was clear that there was going to be an amazing amount of chaos with the arrangements. First they had 3 lanes merge into one. Then they had someone checking that you were involved in the marathon before pointing you to the parking area.
As we walked up towards the general loo area, the marathonfoto.com paparazzi overwhelmed us and asked whether they could take a quick picture or two. We managed 3 on our way and then it was time to pick up my fuelbelt, get rid of my shirt and head to the starting point. I said goodbye to Jeff and headed to the start line.
There was an amazing amount of people. I've NEVER run in a race with more than 2000 people, so this was quite and experience for me. Everywhere was feet, bodies, heads, arms... the smell of bodyglide in the air.... I held on to my bottle of water and sat down and did a few stretches in the shade of those standing around. The sun had come up and the air was already heating up.
Before I knew it, 8h20 had arrived and it was time to start.... I started off conservatively and felt pretty well. The first mile was mostly uphill with a nice climb. The crowd at the start was great. They cheered and went crazy and in general they were just making a lot of noise, which is exactly what I wanted to hear. The atmosphere was making me all giddy and it took everything in me to not speed up and burn up every ounce of energy I had.
The miles passed and I kept a careful eye on my watch to make sure I wasn't going faster than I should. At mile 13 I was still feeling great and only had 3 miles to go before I had to meet up with Jeff. My nutrition was holding up, my legs felt great, I still had 3 gels left... I was feeling awesome....
... but the marathon is unpredictable - it only takes one small thing to make your day go a little off.
Mile 14 arrived... and with it my stomach decided to feel unwell. I stepped in the queue to use the porta-potty and shortly afterwards headed off again towards mile 16. But with every step I now felt a little worse off.
At Mile 16 I spotted Jeff in a sec and he fell in next to me. He was so supportive and motivational and I felt quite bad that I was in worse shape than I would've liked to be. My left leg started hurting shortly after and then I just had to talk to myself and listen to Jeff and it all became roses and moonlight and fluffy bunnies!
The last few miles were increasingly difficult, but the one thing I did NOT want to do, was walk the last mile. So the last 1.2 miles were hobbled/run/jogged/run through gritted teeth.
As I crossed the line and collected my medal, were handed a drink, a blanket,
pushed towards the photographers and managed to get out of the chaotic finishers area with non-runners in, emotion started to overwhelm me. I couldn't believe that I managed to finish it! My legs were hurting so badly it wasn't funny.
I met up with Jeff in the family reunion area with tears in my eyes and we made it back to his car.
That evening we headed over to Jeff's where smsmh made the most wonderful supper. I was dead on my legs though and in dire need of a lot of sleep and we went home relatively early. The sleep I got was the most heavenly of sleep and I could not have asked for a more comfortable bed.
Posted by karinm at March 5, 2008 7:53 PM