Tacoma City Marathon ......May 10th 2008

I'd been training for months and anticipating this day would be so much more than it ended up being. What a disappointment!

Last year at the Yakima marathon my time was 4:17 and my goal was to run the whole 26 miles without stopping, which I did. This year, I didn't care about stopping, I was just going for speed. I really wanted to finish in under 4 hours. Throughout my training I kept envisioning that if I could make this goal I would be so proud of myself. I pictured myself many times in training runs crossing that finish line victoriously.... but what happened was so much different than what I had planned.

Without going into any gross details, I will just say that I had the great idea of "flushing out my system" the day before the race with Ex-lax. Now before you think I'm a complete idiot I did hear this from a marathon maniac that this is a good race strategy. The only problem is I am not used to using laxatives and I had no idea how they would work. So Friday afternoon when the dose I took that morning wasn't doing anything yet, I panicked and took another dose. BIG MISTAKE!

Well, I'll spare you the details and just tell you that the next day right around mile 13 (during the marathon), you know what hit the fan......It was terrible! I had to stop along a trail through a park in the woods, behind a baseball field and even knock on someone's door along the course. NICE!!! Needless to say these unscheduled stops and the fact that if I ran any faster than a 9 minute mile I started cramping, feeling nauseas and the urge to go got even worse. My pants felt so tight around my tummy I kept pulling them down around my hips to relieve some of the pressure I was feeling. I felt like I wanted to throw up . So to make a 13 mile story short I'll just say that I was able to make it to the end without any accidents (which is amazing in itself) and I did manage to enjoy crossing the finish line even if it was with a time 14 minutes slower than I was hoping for.

My only victorious moment from the whole race was when we came to the longest, steepest hill on the course (this was before mile 13). It looked so intimidating! At that moment I had a great song playing on my ipod so when I hit the hill I was feeling strong and decided to sprint up the entire thing. I flew past a bunch of runners on my way up and I could feel all their eyes on me as I passed them and kept on going. It felt great when I got to the top and saw some onlookers with impressed faces cheering me on and giving me a "thumbs up." I trained on hills so it was great to see that training pay off and to feel so strong.

So, I'm going to run another marathon. Maybe the Leavenworth in October. That way I can train all summer in the warmer months and hopefully meet my goal that I was supposed to reach this time. It was a disappointing race but I 'm still glad I did it.

For more pictures from the course visit : http://www.asiorders.com/view_user_event.asp?EVENTID=32501&BIB=2688&S=230&PWD=

On a side note I just want to say that training for a marathon is not that hard. I often hear some people tell me that they're "amazed I have time to train for a marathon." It really is not that amazing....and I'll post my training schedule to prove it. It just requires waking up really early for long runs on Saturday mornings and having a supportive husband who will watch the kids one day a week as your mid week runs get a little longer. I run the other runs during the week on my treadmill in the basement either before the kids wake up or while they're taking their nap. Anyone can do it, seriously!!! This is my outlet and my hobby. I haven't read a novel in years so to all my friends out there who read, just imagine all the hours you put into reading a book -that's where I find the time. (: