Marathon Report, Part 1

I survived!!

It took me a couple of days to get past my fog of depression and exhaustion enough to post this, but I am officially now a marathoner.  I finished the Phoenix-Mesa Marathon in 5:30:43.  (That's five and a half hours.  Yeah.  I was running ALL morning.)

So here's my official recap of my experience:

Running a race means that you have to leave really, really early.  That meant that I dragged myself out of bed at 2:45 am.  I was afraid I wouldn't be able to fall asleep at all, at least not in time to get any sleep, but I actually managed to conk out probably around 9pm, which was pretty good.  I headed out right on time, picked up my sister, and then we headed to our parents' house, which is much closer to the starting area.  Our mom gave us a ride over to where we were supposed to catch the shuttles.  The traffic was a complete nightmare.  Imagine miles of cars lined up along the freeway trying to exit at 4:30am.  Yep.  I hope next year they have a better plan.

Luckily for us, Mom was able to drop us off pretty close to where the shuttle buses were waiting.  Amy and I got right on an almost full bus, and I was enthusiastically counting my blessings that we wouldn't have to sit on the bus too long before we left.  Little did I know . . . the shuttle ride was pure torture.  I didn't realize they were going to drive us all the way to Payson on the way to the starting line.  OK, it wasn't quite that far, but it sure felt like that.  Worse, I had to pee pretty quickly and it was a very bouncy school bus.  Worst, I quickly became quite motion sick.

That stupid shuttle took 45 minutes.  It took some serious mental grit to survive it.  I guess it was my warm up for the race.

Amy and I hung back under the heaters when the race officially started.  We didn't need to be up front with the people trying to win (it's very discouraging when you get passed by about 2,000 people so why shove for the front?)  The beginning of the race was glorious!  It was a gradual downhill incline, the sun was just peaking over the mountains with a beautiful wash of pink and orange, and the temperature was perfect-- cool without being too cold.

My enjoyment lasted for a few miles anyway.

About mile six, my good humor got its first test.  The supposedly "short" and "only" uphill stretch (it wasn't either) loomed ahead of us.  I swear, every time Amy and I thought we must have finally got to the top of the cursed hill, we would go around a bend and realize the road was still heading up.  This went on for a mile and a half.  For those of you shaking your head and wondering what the big deal was, let me give you my personal reaction to Amy:  "We've died and gone to hell!  We are going to be trying to run up this hill forever!!!!"  Granted, this was still early enough in the race that I laughed after I said it.  There would come a point where laughter was a far off dream.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The next horrible challenge came when we realized that besides lying about the length and number of hills, the race course description had lied about the location of the aid stations.  I know, the people planning the course probably didn't think there was any big deal if our email said there would be an aid station at mile 7 and it was actually located at mile 8.  But when you have to pee and you're dying of thirst because it is already getting hot, and you're hoping to grab a snack since the energy bar you ate at the start has been burned away, one more mile seems horribly unfair.  (Again, Amy and I only grumbled at this point.  It would be worse later.)



By mile 9, it was hot.  HOT.  OK, it was still early in the morning.  Kind of.  But when you've been running forever and the sun is beating down on you, it was a killer.  I don't know what the temperature actually was by that point, but it felt like 95 degrees outside.  And there was no shade.  This was when it started to get grinding.  We were still keeping to our pace (maybe even a little faster) but the only way I could keep my sanity was to deliberately avoid thinking about how far we still had to go.  Amy kept us focused on the excitement of making it to the 13.1 marker.  Not only would there be an aid station (hallelujah, because the water I was carrying was all gone by now, and of course I needed a quick bathroom stop again), but we had decided to wait until halfway to put on our music (Amy was afraid her phone battery wouldn't last the whole time otherwise).  When we finally crossed the timing mat, we had been running for 2 hours and 38 minutes.  Halfway.  From then on we had less distance to go than we had already run.

But now the easy part was over.  The grueling part had begun.


(To Be Continued. . . .)