Okay, I know, I know! Carlsbad Marathon was January 17, 2016 and it is now February 17th, so I am a month late in posting my race recap. But I am going to get everyone all caught up real quick on life. A lot happened the week after the #marathon, and it slowed my #blogging down. But better late then never!
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| Expo and Packet Pickup, we are ready, we think. |
So, lets get right to the fun stuff. I am a MARATHONER! I finished and I lived! I know a lot of people will never understand my #obsession with #running, to be honest I don't understand it myself. However, here I sit, one completed and already signed up for another one. So this is how the weekend played out. I had pretty specific nutritional instructions from my coach. Friday I was to eat a good dinner with fish/seafood and a fine glass of wine. Then get to bed early and get a good night sleep. I did just as I was told. Who am I to argue when being told to drink a good glass of wine, honestly. Then Saturday I was instructed to hydrate, stretch, mobilize, go for an easy walk, foam roll (or use "the Stick") as needed, then eat a big 3 egg omelet with healthy veggies. I was again more than happy to oblige, all these seemed easy enough. The tricky part of the instructions was to take it easy Saturday afternoon, you know, nap, watch a movie, etc. Apparently he forgot I have 2 young kids and a husband that believes in staying very active. In fact, hubby wanted me to help him weed the back hillside. I must admit, I laughed at him when he said that. Just what I should be doing before a race i have trained 7 months for, climb up a steep embankment and give the gluten and hamstrings a good workout, nope I am good I told him. I did help with the weeding, on the lower level, then left him to do the rest. I was busy packing any way. My running partner and I had plans to stay up close to the start line so we could actually sleep and not be distracted by the kiddos during the night.
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| Flat Mommas are ready to go! |
So around noon on Saturday the family left for a friends birthday party and I finished packing and rested, picked up my running partner and headed up to the expo to pick up our bibs, buy last minute necessities (like gu and a running pouch) and get her foot taped at the Roc Tape booth. After that we headed to Claim Jumpers for our required chicken, sweet potato, and veggies. It was delicious let me say. Then headed to the hotel, rolled, stretched, laid everything out, and got to bed by 9 PM. It was a fairly good night sleep, woke up a few times, ate my bagel, prefuel, took my salt stick, hydrated etc.
Then the alarm goes off at around 4:15 AM, wow that is early! It was dark and COLD. But we got up and out the door, almost on time. Found a starbucks for the prerace fueling of a breakfast sandwich. Coach said to get an egg mcmuffin, but sorry I cannot eat McDonalds, it just isn't happening. So got a substitute from Starbucks. Got the the start line in plenty of time for a quick warm up and pics from a friend. Coach was running also so he met us at the start line and stayed with us to keep the nerves down until just before the gun went off. Thankfully my running partner had an extra "throwaway" shirt to help keep me warm. It was a brisk 49 degrees for most of the early miles.
The race itself started well. Can I just say there are WAY less people running the marathon then the 1/2 marathon. There were no corrals and it was super lax. Great atmosphere. We started running and used the first mile or two to get warmed up and find our good pace. In those miles we met some other "mother runners" that were out there. It is so funny to meet people you have seen posts from on social media but never met in person and then it is like, "hey we have talked or commented on each others posts." All of a sudden they have a face and are even more fun in person (hint we should get out and off our phones more often). We would proceed to switch lead with them the rest of the run! I will say miles 1-7 we felt pretty good. Then we hit the hill. We knew we would not be able to run the down hill the way we wanted due to my running partners injured foot, so we worked really hard at nailing the up hills. It was all about form and keeping moving. #Posemethod of running was completely the reason we were able to get up the hills in good form and not kill our legs in the process. So miles 8-15 were all about the up and down of the hills. We were still feeling strong and hanging in. At mile 13 we were met by my wonderful husband and daughters. It was great to see them. They were also at mile 15, 21 and the finish line. Cannot begin to tell you the encouragement it brought to me, so happy my daughters saw me finish something I had trained so hard for, but I am jumping ahead.
So from about mile 15-19 we hung on. Running partners foot was starting to bother but she was staying positive an strong. At mile 17 we saw some orange peels on the ground and started to fantasize about a cold orange slice, then as if an angel was there a spectator was there handing out orange slices and pretzels, it was AWESOME!!! Unfortunately the GU's I had taken at mile 5 and 10 were not helping me, in fact they gave me such bad acid reflux it was actually hindering my breathing. Note to self, I am currently testing real food options for the long runs.
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| Always fun to see my favorite Mother runners! |
Mile 17 brought us a visit from running partners family and friends. They had signs for both of us. In fact I didn't recognize them so I saw a sign that said "GO CARRIE 26.2" and thought, "huh, look at that another Carrie is running the marathon today." Then we got closer and running partner recognized her family and I realized the sign was for me! That gave us a little boost and got us thru to mile 19, were they were waiting for us again to cheer.
Mile 19-23 were a bit more difficult. We took turns hitting the wall and we hit is hard. We were both hurting and running partners foot was REALLY hurting. I did discover the miracle spray #biofreeze, wow that stuff smells but is amazing! At mile 21 we came across my family, meet another couple mother runners who were also first time marathoners and found another angel handing out orange slices. At around mile 23 I hit my second wind and we both were able to start thinking on the positive side. At this point the time goal of 5:20 was out the window and we were just shooting to finish in the time limit and under 6 hours. At mile 25 we finally caught a speed walker we had been chasing the WHOLE frickin' race and it gave us some motivation to finish strong.
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| Around Mile 23ish, no other choice but to finish at this point. |
As we came around the corner with .1 left to go we saw our families and coach (who finished a good 2 hours ahead of us). Our kids were able get over the barriers and run in to the finish line with us. My 5 yr old loves to tell people that she beat me across the finish line, haha I let her believe she is the winner because why not! She told me that someday she was going to run the marathon and win it. I told her with hard work and dedication I had no doubt she would (and she is a fast little thing so it is possible!)
After we finished we cooled down, took pics with everyone and then left for some pizza. Would you believe after running 26.2 miles I barely ate the rest of the day, and sleeping that night was not really happening. All the #adrenaline and lactic acid was swirling and made if very hard to sleep. But come Monday, I could NOT get enough to eat and was exhausted. I could not even muster enough energy to type up the blog post! I did make it to the gym for stretching and mobilization that felt AMAZING!
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| Our awesome support crew, could not have done this without these two men!! |
I had every intention of writing this on the Friday after, and then. . .the car accident happened. I will tell you more about that in the next post! Stay Tuned!
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| We did it! We are Marathoners! And the pants were a big hit too. |
