The Run

You guys must love us. Like I said in my last post--we were overwhelmed with your responses to our marathon. Hopefully I answer all your questions in this post!

We got up to St. Louis on Saturday morning and spent the day picking up race materials, eating lunch, and relaxing at the hotel. Sunday I began preparing for the run at 3:30am, and three hours later we were standing in the rain with 25,000 other people on Market St. waiting for the gun to go off. When it did, it took nearly 10 minutes to progress to the start line. The view of the Arch here would have been pretty amazing if it wasn't completely obscured by clouds. Remember that self-talk paragraph from training? I started chanting this pretty early on as the rain poured down. I was so distracted by the rain, crowds, other runners that I found it really hard to focus on the long version so this is what it got shortened to on race day:

I am a marathoner
I feel great*
I love to run in the rain
*this later turned into "good" without me realizing it...probably around mile 20

The crazy thing about this is that it works. After the race David and I were talking about the rain and how it was big irritant to David (I'll let him share his own story), but after the first few miles I honestly didn't think about or notice the rain again. I felt great until mile 10 when I started cramping a bit, probably from the extra potent gatorade & gels on the course. I ran through it and opted for water for a little while. The other miles went by without standing out in my mind. I told myself in training that when I got to the point that I wanted to quit (aka: "hitting the wall") I would run that particular mile for my dear friend Jenny who died of cancer six years ago. Enter mile 17. I was pooped, my hip hurt, and my breathing was a little off. My eyes were focused on the ground about 10 feet ahead of me, but when I looked up and saw that big mile 17 marker I said (probably out loud) "this one's for you, Jen!" Then I got all emotional and was making some unusual noises judging by David's looks at me...I can tell you that it's not efficient on any level to cry & run. I eventually got control of myself, but when I did I definitely felt a renewed sense of strength and focus that got me past "the wall." I felt pretty good again until mile 25--I could almost see the end, but it just seemed SO far still. We picked up our pace around 25.5 and crossed the finish line together. All we could do afterwards was laugh! It felt great to finish and even better to get dry clothes on.

Was it fun? Yes and no. It was so much fun to attain this goal together...but it took a lot of determination and honestly, PAIN to get it done. Will we do it again? Who knows? Not tomorrow, that's for sure! Run again for a better time? Nope. Our goal was to finish. I could probably run 10 marathons with that same goal and be challenged each time to get it done! Did we get our custard? No...we opted for Bananas Foster Pie at D&B! Are we sad or glad it's over? Both really. It feels wierd not to get up to run this week and it will be nice to have our Saturdays back, although we both plan to keep running. Did we run the WHOLE time? We did. We would stop at the water stations because we found out that we were bad at drinking from a cup while in motion. How did I manage it with Diabetes? One of the things I love about running and the marathon in particular is that while I'm running, I'm just like everyone else. No pump, no insulin, and if I plan it right, no low or high blood sugars. I do have to take in as many carbs (ie gatorage, gels, etc) as I can get down while running which can mess with my stomach but since I trained that way, it wasn't a huge deal on race day. Did I leave anything out? I know that I've said this before, but your support really meant so much to both of us, during our training, and especially on race day. Thank You!

There were professional photographers on the course and as soon as those pictures are made available to us, we will post them for you to see.

Yes, we still have kids and will get new pictures of them up soon!