This is for Marion. I told her I would publish my race report.
It takes an idiot to run, but it takes a special idiot to run a marathon!
That was my favorite saying of the posters along the St. George Marathon!
I went into my second marathon with no injuries, but by the end I pretty much hurt just as if I had. It was great to run the whole distance with Tom. He was pretty handy to have along. He would run ahead to the water stations and fill my water bottles for me. Maybe I would have been better off taking a few walking breaks through the water stops, who knows?
I actually started out really good. I was feeling healthy and ready to do whatever came my way. The weather was about as perfect as it could be. Unlike last year.....
We woke at 4:00 and was on the bus by about 5:00. We hit the top and joined all the others by waiting in porta potty lines and standing by one of several fires that are there to keep us all a bit warm.
The starting time was approaching so we took off all our outer layers and bagged them up to retrieve later. We joined in the crowd about mid pack and heard the starting siren. It takes close to 2 minutes to reach the starting line from where we were in the line up. It was dark but with a nice full moon to give us enough light to see ahead of us....again, unlike last year.....!
We chatted with a few people along the route. It was fun to see that people from all over come to St. George to run this marathon. We talked with some from Montana, Texas and Mississippi. I'm sure there were many more places represented there that day!
They say that SGM is a down hill marathon....well, there is definitely a lot of up hill in there too. I'm not sure if the up hill gets my knees or the down hill or the combination of both. Anyway, there is a good combination of both!
I had to take a few potty breaks this year....I think I made it last year without any. After about mile 14 I had to take several stretching breaks also. So I figure that my 4:09:12 finish time wasn't so bad, even if last year I made it in 4:05.
I'm sure I was looking pretty pathetic on those last few miles! Every step was hurting the outside of my knees! With 1 or 2 miles left I wasn't sure if I could keep smiling for the crowd. By the way, the crowd was awesome! How fun to have all those people cheering you on! When they were cheering for Dayna, I was Dayna! When they were cheering for Steve, I was Steve! When they were cheering for Dude, I was Dude! And sometimes I was Mommy and/or Daddy!
Anyway, those who seen me the last bit probably saw a lot of grimacing! During that time, Tom realized that our van key had slipped from his little hidden pocket in his shorts and fallen into a new little pocket, not intended to store keys in. :) As he told me where the key was and watching him try to get it out I got laughing and laughing! I'm sure people thought I was delirious or something, (which I may have been)! And they probably wondered what in the heck he was doing! Anyway, the key was put back in it's proper place, as was everything else and we continued on.
The finish line is an amazing place. It was somewhere I wanted to get to quickly, but at the same time it was the end of another great running adventure, (as one good friend calls all running!)
I chose to get my finisher medal from a young boy, who put it around my neck and told me "Good job!" Then a volunteer looked at me and asked me if I needed help. After a few steps I was able to move along and even smile for some pictures that they want to charge an arm and a leg for!
I would love to run another marathon someday. I think I will give it 2 years though. I want to think only about 1/2 marathons and less for the next while!
A big thanks to a great hubby who sacrificed a perfect year to run this marathon with me! It was a lot like life....ups and downs, grimaces and laughter, joy and pain.....but together the whole way through!
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