Rhythmic Walkers

If you read Heathers post yesterday you would know that for a little less than half of the marathon we had to walk.  Unfortunately Heather's knee had no interest in running this race.  Although she was more than prepared sometimes our bodies just won't allow us to achieve what we would like.

When we first signed up for this race Heather told me that she would sign up if I promised to run it with her.  She wanted to run it in the first place but this was her way of making me sign up too.  So I signed up and agreed to make her training plan as well as coach her through the race.  I decided that Heather and I could just use the same training plan.  This was partly due to my laziness of making two plans.  Anyways, I realize now that for a beginner marathoner she did not need to log so many miles.  I feel like this may have attributed to her knee problems. 

Moving on, I am not going to re-cap entirely the whole marathon because you heard most of it from Heather yesterday.  What I would like to add is that this was my first walk/run marathon and I will say that it is just as hard and painful as running one.  When you are walking, you will log much more time on your legs.  Mentally it is exhausting if you actually think about the time it will take you to finish.  In the beginning of the race both Heather and I were feeling great.  My legs were rested and I was ready to fly.  When Heather's knee pain set in I could see her discouragement.  She kept going and I kept trying to keep things positive.

It was when the pain was to hard to bare that I began to feel helpless.  In my head I prayed and prayed that her pain would be taken away so she could run this marathon.  Her knee pain was only getting worse.  I will be honest, when the realization set in about what was happening I thought for a moment that I could just go.  I was feeling good my legs wanted to run but I knew that I could not leave her side.  Emotionally it would have been to hard for her to finish alone and she would quit.

At that moment I put all of my ideas/excitement of what this marathon could be aside and put all of my hopes and positive energy into helping her get through this.  She is my sister and I love her dearly, and I know she would have done the same for me.  No marathon PR is stronger than a bond with your family.  I love her so much and am so proud of what she has accomplished.  She is the strongest woman I know and hands down this was my best marathon yet! I will never forget this race and I wouldn't have ran it any other way.

Let me just say that I have never received so many compliments on a race before.  People loved us!  One because we were totally matching, Two we had the best Rhythmic walk ever and Three because people could see how much fun we were having.  We even were complimented on our great bums :)

Can't you just tell we were powering through it....?  Below you can see our faces like "What??  This is it?" Ha!

Heather needed to make a quick call to her husband who just finished his FIRST marathon in 3:24!  He was smokin!

Really the walk we were going for was the walk from the old TV show Kath and Kim.  Did you ever watch it?  It was only on air for two seasons but I totally loved that show.  So funny!

Heather, Jen and Bryan it was a blast!!  Thanks for the great memories!

Now I have 4 weeks off before I start my training for ING NYC Marathon! Woohoo!

XX
Sarah

PS Yes I may have taken screen shots of these pix ;)  Pls don't think I am a bad person.