Phoenix Marathon Recap

I don't really know why I haven't posted this yet.  I wrote it the day after the marathon and maybe it was just too real or too much for me to publish at that time.  It still feels weird, actually.  I finished a marathon, and this is my story...

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Rewind with me for a minute to the following dates:

May 5, 2012: E-mail conversation with my friend, Jamie, regarding the possibility of signing up for a marathon in 2013.  Phoenix came up as a possibility because her dad has a place there.  I searched for a Phoenix race and up came the Phoenix Marathon . We agreed to register together so neither of us could back out.

May 18, 2012: Registration for the marathon.  Jamie and I conversed via gmail chat and registered at the same time.

Now back to the present:

March 2, 2013: Nearly 10 months after we decided we were going to register for the race, we finished it.  I really hoped I would finish in under 5 hours and I really thought I could do it.  That ended up not being the case at all.  But I did finish and that's all that really matters at this point in time. This is how it all went down...

Jamie and I got to the gathering area to travel up to Usery Mountain Park and were on the bus at 5:00 AM.  That means we were up SUPER early (I woke up before my alarm went off at 3:45) to get there on time.  Thank goodness we got there when we did because we found out later from Jamie's dad, Ed, that the traffic to get to the buses was backed up on the interstate and if we were any later we would have risked not getting on the bus at all.  Whew.

The starting area was pretty sweet.  They had several heaters set up and fires built for the folks not used to the weather (Jamie and I didn't worry about it; it was almost 50 degrees outside!). The port-a-potty situation seemed a little short in number but it didn't impact me at all.  The National Anthem played (complete with fireworks!) and suddenly we were being herded to the start line.  I'm pretty sure they started right at 6:30 but I was too busy setting my Garmin and maybe freaking out a little bit when the cannon went off to start the race.

Gathering area near the starting line

Jamie and I before the start of the race

The starting line!

Jamie and I decided on Friday night that we would start out running together at about 11:00/mile pace and if one of us wanted to go ahead or stay back, we would split up.  We took off running with the 4:55 pace group and ended up going ahead of them within the first few miles.  I didn't really mean to do that but the girl who was running right in front of us was kind of annoying and wasn't running very consistently or in a straight line, so we passed her and therefore passed the entire pace group.

My husband and Jamie's dad were waiting to cheer us on between miles 3 and 4 which was great!  We knew they were going to try to see us along the route but we had no idea exactly where they would be.  Jamie stopped at mile 5 to use the bathroom and that's where we split.  I kept my pace around 11:00/mile until the half mark but stopped to use the bathroom just before the timing mat so my half-marathon time was 2:27:32 - 11:16/mile.  I slowed a bit after that to 12 and 13 minute miles until mile 19.  I had really hoped to run the race in under 5 hours which meant I would need to keep my pace faster than 11:27/mile but with the way my Garmin works I can't see both my current pace and average pace on my watch at the same time so in order to know my average pace I needed to be able to do the math...and doing math when you're 19 miles into a run is kind of hard.

I was able to see Ed and Josh cheering a few more times along the way which was seriously great. I think it was right along mile 17 when I saw them and told Josh that if I ever talk about running a marathon again he should remind me of how much it sucked right at that moment.  Not too long after that I saw them drive past me which told me right away that Jamie must be pretty close behind me.  I continued on and eventually slowed to walk.  I turned around and saw Jamie right behind me!  I waved, she waved, and I kept walking until she caught up with me.

I don't think I've ever been so glad to see her face than I was at that very moment.

I have no idea if Jamie was hurting as much as I was or if she would have been able to go on ahead of me.  She never said a word about it; she just kept right by my side and ran when I said I wanted to run and walked when I said I needed to walk.

Ed and Josh appeared again at mile 17, this time with ice packs.  Have I mentioned it was the hottest day of the year so far in Phoenix on Saturday? The ice packs were a godsend. Seriously. They were there again at 20 with more and said they would see us at the finish line.  I think we got to mile 20 in about 4 hours.  On a good day I can run 6.2 miles in an hour, but there was no way that was going to happen.  I knew far before that moment in time that I wouldn't be making my goal of a sub-5 hour marathon, but I didn't care.  All I cared about was finishing.

Some miles during the last 6.2 had far more walking than running and it took us awhile to finish them.  Finally, close to the 26 mile mark, I looked up and saw Bass Pro Drive - the finish line was just around the corner - and I started to get choked up.  I fought back the tears.  I was almost done.  I felt like hell but knew there was no way I was going to walk across the finish line.  Again, I have no idea how Jamie felt at this point, but she stuck by me!  We had been walking and decided to run with the final .2 or so remaining and we crossed the finish line together.

Final finishing time 5:25:36.

We got our medals and I finally turned to Jamie and hugged her and cried. 

I finished. 

WE finished. 

Together.

The celebration began almost immediately.  Ed and Josh found us and we stretched for a bit (although it seems like no amount of stretching could stop the amount of soreness I feel at this exact moment in time). We checked text messages and facebook, we took pictures, and eventually went to find beer.  And boy, did that beer taste good!

The celebration continued at Ed's place in the frigid swimming pool and delightful hot tub.  We napped and eventually continued the party at the Sandbar (Ed's local watering hole) for dinner and more drinks and then back to Ed's for even more celebrating at Ed's after that.  Holy smokes, that was a lot of partying!

Partaaaaaaayyyyyy!!!

My legs were sore.  And I mean really sore.  I wasn't walking anywhere close to normal and getting up and down stairs and in and out of chairs was extremely difficult.  But I'm glad I did it.  I finished a freaking marathon.