Well, we did it. Amongst the long hours of work, moving to the city and other surprises… not to mention Amy Macs knee tendinitis, 6 weeks of inactivity and 4 weeks of physical therapy… we made it! Not only did we make it, we made it look goooood.
Ok, maybe not good, but we both were very happy with the race. 26.2 miles is a hard race to prepare for not only physically, but mentally as well. How do you run that far, and more importantly, how do you plan to run that far? When we started this adventure 6-7 months ago we had no idea what to expect in terms of time commitment, training hours and miles or even how fast we would try to run this thing… so we through some goal times out (pulling them from thin air) and put them out there.
Originally I thought ~4 hours would be something I could accomplish, and I would try to drag Amy along with me. But as time wore on it became more and more obvious with our short training schedule and demands at work that this would not really be possible. I adjusted my plan to be around 4:30 and Amy adjusted her schedule to be 5 hours (although she really wanted to be able to keep pace with me). While not 100% successful, we are very happy with what the results were. I ended up running 4 hours and 38 minutes and Amy ran 4 hours and 59 minutes! Success, I say!
As of this writing it has been one week since we finished our race. I will probably run one again, but Amy was only in it for the one race. Im not sure when I will be able to begin my training again, my toe nail fell off yesterday (my big toe) and it hurts to walk, let alone run. We will just have to see how soon the pain goes away so I can start moving again. Most likely I will start training for more triathlons and half marathons and find a sweet full marathon in the next few years to test me again.
I just read that Sarah Palin ran a sub 4 hour marathon… and with that, I have a new goal time. I would like to say my goal was to qualify for the Boston marathon, but to make that happen I would have to slash about 90 minutes off of my time. Ha ha ha ha!
To all of our supporters for the last few months and those who cheered us on along the route in Portland, thanks for your support, kind words and tips. You helped make this a memorable experience all around.
