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Comments: Jen and I were off and running, it was exciting! Almost immediately, my right foot started hurting. I knew it would, I just really didn't want it to be right away. Also, the "no bounce" Spi Belt was bouncing. Heavily. I had packed 2 packages of Shot Bloks, a Clif Bar, and a GU in there, as I have to carry all of my own race nutrition since I'm gluten free and didn't want to assume there were things I could eat on the course (turned out to be a GREAT decision!). So I took off the fuel belt and just carried it in my hand. Yup, for the whole rest of the race, ha! Those first eight miles with Jen literally FLEW by. We talked and talked and talked about everything, while I kept an eye on our pace. Everyone I'd ever talked to about a marathon has drilled into my head not to go out too fast, so I was aiming for around 10:30s - we were doing pretty good, actually, a little slower on a few but whatever. One time I looked down at the time and said "OMG can you believe we've been running for an hour and twelve minutes already?!" It felt like we'd just started. As we saw the 8-mile marker we knew the split would be coming soon. I was kinda sad, because of how fast the miles had ticked off. I had no idea what would happen all by myself. I actually almost started crying. Jen told me I was a rock star, to remind myself of that especially at mile 22, to turn my iPod on after she left, and a big happy birthday. BYE JEN! Gulp. I turned my iPod on and had a few REALLY good songs to start my play list (Just Dance by Lady Gaga, and Beautiful by Akon). The sun was out and shining on my face, I was feeling GOOD, and singing out loud! This was the point where I felt the very best. I was passed soon by a pack of three shirtless boys. I was woo-hooing at them, and the people playing guitar in their front yard, and just having a BLAST! After my little high wore off, I noticed that my left quad was very angry with me, and the miles were ticking by excruciatingly slow. 10, 11, 12... blaaaaah. Just after mile 12 I noticed I was eating next to someone else eating. I tried to strike up a conversation with him, we talked for a minute about Shot Bloks, but he didn't seem too interested in being my talking buddy. At an aid station around mile 10, the volunteers couldn't keep up with pouring the bottled water (?) into the little paper cups, so they just started handing out bottles. I was happy with this, because it was filtered water and not DIRT TX water, but after a few minutes of running with a full water bottle in one hand and my food in the other, I decided to just ditch it. At mile 13, I found myself directly behind the shirtless boys who were walking. Just as I neared, they started running again. I said to the girl next to me "If only they would stay right in front of us!" and she agreed. I started to talk to her and quickly realized that THIS IS MY TALKING BUDDY! YAAAAY, I found her! Her name was Lisa, too! I told her that I really wanted to try to get to mile 20 before stopping for a walk break. So that was our mission. Lisa and I talked and talked and talked... about jobs, boys, her upcoming wedding, her job as an ER Nurse, her finace, Tom, doggies, families, anything you can think of. It really helped, but by miles 18 we were both ready for a tiny walk break. Just one minute! Ok, I can handle that. We were both feeling pretty fatigued by then, and decided to run to each mile marked, then walk for one minute. That seemed reasonable. So each mile, we would run, and she would ask me about 3 or 4 times how much farther since I had a GPS on. That was a little annoying, but hey, she was my talking buddy. I was just grateful for the company. The WIND was really annoying at this point, actually, the whole 2nd half of the race. Just vicious, pretty unbelievable. At one point we passed a construction site and a HUGE gust of wind came in and everyone got sand in their eyes. Terrible. 19, walk... 20 walk... OMG we are at 20! Just a 10K, you've done that a million times before. Also, I was now officially at my longest run ever. 21 walk, 22 walk... just 4 more miles. you do this all the time! About this time we both noted that we were in pain, but it wasn't unbearable. It was about the same level of pain that had set in around mile 18... it never really got any WORSE... we were just maintaining it. 23, walk. 24 walk. I told her at mile 24 that we would just stop one more time at 25 and then not again till the finish - she agreed. So we came to our last walk stop at mile 25. The ladies at the aid station were yelling "just one more mile!" and I told them I'd been waiting a long time to hear that! OMG JUST ONE MORE MILE! It was then I realized I was going to finish. We picked up the pace a little, and Lisa actually ran a bit ahead of me. She kept looking back, encouraging me on. There were a lot of turns in the last mile, I never knew which one would reveal the finish line. Come on... come on...! And then... there it was. People were scattered on the streets and sidewalks, screaming for us, telling us we were there! OMG, we were there!!! I ran down that last final street feeling so so sooooo proud of myself. Here I was... on my 30th birthday... running the final yards to finish my first marathon. After all of the pain with my feet injury, the 18 weeks of focusing on running, the 20-miler in the 0-degree wind chill... it all came flashing in my head as I took it all in. I saw Tom, Eric, and Jen screaming for me, and I heard the announcer call my name and town. I crossed the finish line feeling simply incredible. Nutrition: 6 Clif Shot Bloks, 1 GU, 1 mini Snickers, PowerAid What would you do differently?: Not injure both of my feet five weeks before the race.  Post race
Warm down: Got my sa-weet finisher's medal and found my crew. I was feeling good - or at least I thought I was! They walked me to the food, where all I ate was a little bag of popcorn and a little dixie cup of Coke. Nothing else was appealing in the least. As I was eating my popcorn, I see Gloria and Ken (ya, where were they!) run up with balloons, a card, and a GLUTEN-FREE chocolate cake for my b-day! Seriously?! For me?! I have the sweetest and most thoughtful friends, I swear. Then I saw JeepFleeb! He had come back after doing his half, apparently just to see me! I am soooooo blessed to have met such awesome people through BT who are just as awesome in real life! Ok I was freezing my boo-tay off by this point, even though Tom had brought me a long sleeved shirt. So we started our way back to the hotel. That was a long 5 blocks. My legs had tightened up, and it was concentrated on my left quad and the area where it attaches to my hip (my groin? IDK). I could barely lift my left leg. Lovely. And my right foot really started hurting at this point. There were a few points in the race where I really noticed it, but for the most part it left me alone during the race; I was really thankful for that. Got back to the hotel room to find that my family had sent flowers! So awesome. I called my mom and grandma, talked to them forever. Finally showered (oooh ya!) and laid down for a few minutes. Then my tummy growled something fierce! Time to eat. We ate at some cajun joint - really good! Then went back to the hotel to grub on the cake. It was divine! Now it's time to party! It is my birthday, after all. We headed to a piano bar and OMG. It was SO much fun! It was so crowded we couldn't sit down even though we got there around 8:30. It was probably good for my legs, though, to keep them moving. We sang, and danced, and sang, and danced... I was even called on stage by name to do the Chicken Dance with a bunch of other birthday people and bachelorettes! By the end of the night, we had sung our little hearts out and danced our little legs off, and just had the time of our lives. What an epic run and epic birthday! One I won't forget anytime soon. What limited your ability to perform faster: Nothing. Event comments: Great race! Good course (but not flat by any means), plenty of drinks. I was a little surprised there was not much food on the course; I was really glad I had all my own with me. Awesome finishers medal that is one piece of a 5-point star if you put five years of medals together in a circle. Nice finisher's tech shirt. Never found any post race massages and I was told they ran out of beer by the time I finished. Overall a good race. Last updated: 2008-10-01 12:00 AM
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United States
40F / 4C
Sunny
Overall Rank = 695/921
Age Group = F30-34
Age Group Rank = 31/44
SOME BACKGROUND: Last year, I had this crazy idea that I wanted to do something epic for my 30th birthday. I mean, it's a pretty big milestone, right? I started looking at races and found a MARATHON on my actual birthday. It was so perfect, I signed up almost immediately. Started training in late October using a Hal Higdon plan.
If you don't know me, I am not anal about much in life. Except for my training. I'm terrified to death that I won't be able to finish if I don't train properly, and I follow training plans pretty much to a "t". So in the 13th week of the training plan (5 weeks out from the race) it called for the first 20-miler. I did it in 15-degree weather and was so dang proud of myself. I really felt for the first time like I could do the marathon after that run. The next day I ran a quick 5-miles on the treadmill and noticed a slightly alarming pain in my right ankle. The next run a few days later, the outside "pinky" bones on both of my feet developed intense pain. So intense, I couldn't run for more than 4 miles without having to stop. I was devastated, and thought I was screwed. I got really down about the race for a few weeks, and finally decided to go to the doctor. She referred me to an orthotics store where they fitted me with some over the counter inserts. While that took all of the pain away from my left foot, my right one still had a significant amount of pain. I debated switching to the half marathon, not doing the race at all... but in the end I wanted to prove I could do it, and I really wanted to do it on my 30th birthday.
RACE WEEKEND: I had a crew of 6 people coming to Ft. Worth for the weekend; everyone was doing the Half but me. We drove to Ft. Worth Friday afternoon and went right to the Expo. I bought a few things, including a Spi Belt - one of those "no bounce" fuel belts since the one I'd bought last week didn't hold everything I needed it to hold. While I was at the BondiBand booth (I found a headband that said BIRTHDAY GIRL and had to buy it! See pics) the announcer saw what I was buying and took my information down. A few minutes later he gets on the PA and announces my race number, name, and that it's my 1st marathon on my 30th Birthday tomorrow! That was pretty cool!
Ate a good Mexican dinner at Mi Cocina and noted that the water in Texas tastes like DIRT! IIICCCKKK. I could barely drink it and had to order a lemonade. Back to the hotel to set everything out for tomorrow. I was really calm until I laid down in bed. Holy crap, I'm going to run a freaking marathon tomorrow!!!! My heart would not stop racing; I didn't fall asleep for a long time.
Didn't have to get up super early since the hotel was only 7 blocks from the start line. Up at 6 a.m. and in the lobby by 7. It was cold out! I was wearing running shorts, a sleeveless tech, arm warmers, and glove liners. And my "birthday girl" headband :)
Jogged the 7 blocks to the start line, said goodbye to the boys and huddled in the mass of people to stay warm. Jen had offered to run the first 8ish miles with me since that was where the half split from the full. I knew Gloria would want to race her pace, but we all huddled together waiting for the gun. We couldn't hear anything the announcer was saying, but we heard the gun! Took about 6 minutes to get to the start line... Gloria took off, then Jen and I crossed the timing mat together. Here I was... beginning my first marathon.