My Race

Me and Sarah walking together .  We were side by side the whole time.

This is how my race went down.  It started raining.  Which I was totally fine with.  Heck.... I trained in the rain all the time.  I could deal with windy, rainy conditions.  A knee pain I could not handle.  My knee started to act up right around the time I ran the Stillwater Half Marathon.  It was sort of hurting about a week before Stillwater, but I never gave it a rest.  I consider myself a pretty tough person and thought I would just be able to run through the pain.  I did rest it for the entire week before Grandma's.  And as many of you know got some fancy tape put on it.  I really was feeling good, and thought I was going to run this marathon strong and have a great time. I did have a great time but wish that I could have run it stronger.  Here is the breakdown...

Results

5:32:27

12:42 pace

Miles 1-5  Felt GREAT.  Loved all the great energy.  No knee pain.  Was happy to be running with one of my best friends.

Mile 5-15  My knee was starting to ache a little.  Right when I started to feel it I told Sarah lets run 9mins walk 1min.  I would stay on top of the pain.  Give it a little break and kept telling myself it would be fine.  Well as the miles went on it started to hurt a little more and a little more.  Around mile 9 or 10 my friend Diane ran by me.  She talked to me a little and that was the first moment that I could feel the tears building up.  This lady really helped me a ton during my training season and I was sad that I couldn't keep up with her.  She then ran on.  I pushed the sad feelings aside and just tried to keep the positive energy coming.

Mile 16-26.2  By mile 16 my knee would not bend when I would stop to do my minute walk.  It was harder to change back and forth between running and walking.  I talked to my amazing coach...aka.. Sarah and we decided that it would be best just to walk the rest.  Let me tell you friends that walking is MUCH harder then running.  You think 10 miles sounds long running.  Well walking it seems even farther.  But I needed to listen to my body and it was telling me to stop running.

We walked as fast as we could.  Talked about everything.  Laughed about tons.  Saw some crazy people.  Some hurt people.  And had lots of people comment on the speed we were walking.  I was going to walk the fastest I could if I couldn't run it.  

We finished like ROCK STARS!!!!  I had a really really great time.  It wasn't until that night that the emotions and frustration set in.  I was so upset with myself.  Why couldn't I just run through the pain.  All the training that I had done and then couldn't even run all of it.  Why did my knee have to hurt??  Why couldn't it have been the crazy lady dressed like a bird that had knee problems?  Tears came and it felt good.  Always feels good to get a good cry in right??  

I couldn't have asked for a better coach that day.  Sarah continued to tell me that I was doing GREAT and that it didn't matter one bit if we had to walk it.  She told me over and over again that the miles were going to fly by.  And they did cause I was with her.  Thanks Sarah.  I love you.  And Jen I love you to and I know that if I needed you there you would be right by my side as well.

What do they say??  What doesnt kill you will make you stronger??  Well this challenge for sure has made me stronger.  I will run another marathon.  And I will be stronger next time because of this one.

This is the awesome video that Bryan took of us crossing the finish line!  They called us The Rhythmic Walkers.

-Heather