Overdue Race Report.

I am alive!! Life has been super busy since the best weekend of my life so obviously haven't had time to post about the Seattle Rock 'n' Roll Marathon.

There is SO much to say I don't even know where to start. I had the time of my life....not only with the marathon, but with Seattle, my team, the Gay Pride Parade, everything! Definitely think Seattle is where I'm destined to be.

Going to try to make this short but from the beginning...

Thursday:
Arrived at the airport at 4:40am super stoked to get on the plane and start off an awesome weekend. Long story short... we didn't leave the Wichita airport until 5:55PM. Ummm yeah, very irritating. So... we spent 12 hours in the airport doing this...

Team bonding. An absolute blast.

We arrived in Seattle at about 2am. We were all pretty bummed we missed the Mariner's game, our limo ride to Salty's, a night out... but everything happens for a reason, right? We were just happy to be there.

Friday:
Woke up and headed to the expo where we got our race packets, shopped around, and got tons of free samples of all kinds of stuff. Went to lunch with the team at the Pike Pub, walked around Pikes Place Market, then headed back to the hotel to clean up for the TNT Inspiration Dinner.

Go Kansas!

Race day:
I used to think getting up at 3:15 to go run was crazy, but we went to a whole new extreme... 2:45am. Yeah, nuts. We were told to meet in the hotel lobby at 3:45 in order to catch the first trolley over to the race at 4:00. Well, we did and had over 2 hours to waste once we arrived at the race. Better to be safe that sorry, right?

A huge plus of arriving so early is that we were the first ones to use the honey buckets (port a potties). I think we ended up going 5 times before the race even started! About 3o minutes before the race, we met up with the bloggers which was awesome! I feel like I already know all you guys just from reading your blogs, yet have never met any of you. Can finally put an actual face with the blog! So great to meet all of you!

Pre-Race Pictures

The race... this is where I'm speechless. I don't even know what to say, where to start. It was an absolute blast.

Miles 1-17 seriously flew by. Hannah, Yvette, and I were talking, laughing, taking pictures, just like any other Saturday run.

I said mile 17 because this was the first time I thought, "oh my gosh I'm tired." I got a little upset because I had ran 20 miles 3 times before the race and didn't want to be tired yet! I blame the hills. I was so unprepared for hills so they definitely wore me out... I mean come on.. I'm from Kansas!
We kept truckin along and all was well until mile 21. Dun dun dun... pretty sure Michele hit an emotional wall. We were in one of the dungeon tunnels and I pretty much wanted to die. I told Hannah and Yvette I wanted to cry but could hardly bring myself to do it because it made breathing a million times harder! Tons of negative thoughts were going through my head.. I hate this, why did I think I could do this, I'm too unprepared, I never want to do this again.

With some words of encouragement and singing of Britney Spears, Hannah and Yvette helped me get through and clear my head of all negative thoughts. Hannah kept talking and talking and singing and talking and I am SO thankful. She said she thought I was going to kill her but I needed it to keep my mind off my calves that were about to explode.

Miles 21-26 were definitely the hardest miles I have ever ran. But.. I did it and got to the last .2 and took off. Hannah and Yvette have wheels! We wanted to finish together, so I knew I had to keep up. I even said to Hannah, I can't run any faster than this. Her reply, we have to get around these people (pretty sure she used different wordage but that's beside the point) so we can get a good picture. So I hit my nitro and jetted to the finish line.I did it!! My time was 5:08.21. Wanted to get under 5 hours, but I'll take it. Hannah and Yvette were absolutely amazing. I never thought I wouldn't finish, but without them it would've been a whole lot slower and a whole lot harder.

There is tons more to say about the race, the rest of the weekend, the days after the marathon, but this post took me forever to write and I need to go hit the books!

Although I said to myself I'd never do it again... I'm already signed up for my next one. Denver Rock'n'Roll October 17, 2010. Woot, can't wait!!

Out of here.

Just posting to say...

Next time you hear from me, I'll be a marathoner!!!!!

Head games.

This morning was our last team run before the big day, EEK!! I can't believe in one week I will be running my very first marathon!

Here's a short review of the past week...
Well, let's just say that it basically sucked. Looking back on my last post "contented", everything was going so good.. then last week, a completely different story.

Last Saturday was my last 20 miler before the race, definitely didn't feel as strong as I'd hoped. Leg cramps, extreme hotness, tiredness... mentally, I just wasn't there.

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday... 4 miles, 2 miles, and 6.5 miles... all a struggle. I don't know what my deal was, I just couldn't get into my groove. I really think my motivation started dwindling when the San Diego group left for their marathon. I wanted to go too. I had been training as long as they had and I was ready. Yet, I had another 3 weeks of training.

Thursday...blah. Woke up, ankle hurt. Fabulous. I told myself that missing one day of running this late in the game due to a weird pain would not be a big deal, it would actually be smart. Of course, physically, I was right. Mentally, not a good idea. So on Friday, my normal day off, I woke up and wanted to run. I never run on Fridays because Saturday is our long run. Basically, I had a fight with myself about whether or not I should go run. I even ended up texting Hannah and asked her to tell me I was being a freak and to just take the day off and have a good strong run Saturday. Sure enough, she told me I was being a freak and gave me some words of encouragement to make me feel better. Knew I could count on her.

And now for today...thank goodness for today! 13 miles, turned out to be a great run. I actually had fun on this run... for the first time in over a week. Some of the Seattle ladies decided to buy these green sparkle spirts to rock out during the marathon. You know what they say... don't try anything new on the day of the race. So... we wore them to the training run this morning to test them out. Loved them!

Our totally awesome Seattle team... (missing Andy, Stacy, and Kevin)

Sparkle skirts!! Backview...

Frontview

Love them? Hate them? Indifferent? Either way... we had a blast wearing them and can't wait to rock them out again in Seattle!

Have a great weekend everyone!!

Contented.

Yesterday, we had our travel meeting for our TNT Seattle group. Oh my goodness, let me tell ya... this got my emotions going crazy. I feel so overwhelmed (in a good way) with every happy emotion you could think of!

There are 12 (I think?) of us Wichitan's going to Seattle, which made for a pretty tight nit group. We are in the process of making plans to go to a Mariner's baseball game, go to dinner at Salty's (some fabulous Seafood restaurant, according to Stephanie), shop at the expo, go here, go there... it's just going to be an absolute blast! Stephanie grew up in Seattle, so she knows all the hot spots that we must go see.

Stephanie, Yvette, and I headed over to Hannah's house after the meeting to have lunch and hear all about her San Diego marathon experience and how she totally rocked it!! SO proud of her. Her race report will be up soon so stay tuned! I've said it before, but I'm going to say it again... I don't know how I got so lucky to have crossed paths with these ladies, but I did, and I am ever so thankful. They are not just running buddies anymore, they are friends for life.

Okay, probably sick of hearing my sappiness. In other news...

Yoga: Absolutely loving it. I've taken a few different classes now from a few different instructors and I have to say my favorite is probably the Hot Fusion class. From the Siva website..

HOT FUSION is a series of 26 poses focusing on breath and holding
poses for longer periods. Mixed with some flow. Detoxify, strengthen your
body, and lose weight.

Sound amazing? Yes, it is. And it's in a 90+ degree room.... love it. Unfortunately, I have class on the nights it's offered, so I will just have to wait until July to join back in!

Running: Still going strong. Last week, my weekly mileage totaled 27 miles. Not the greatest week for me mentally, every run seemed like a struggle. Luckily, things were back to normal this week and this week's mileage (after Saturday) will total 40. Saturday is my last long run until the marathon!! Last 20-miler and last 4am run for awhile! Woot! Oh and the Garmin, got it exchanged and it works like a charm! Love it.

Life: Life seemed fitting. I was going to put class, work, fun, other, but that all describes my life so there we go. Life is better than ever. I'm doing things I love with people I love and loving every minute of it.

Have a fabulous weekend!

The fab and the unfab.

Of course, it's been another week since I have posted, which means another week of fabulousness. (yeah, fabulousness is definitely a word now)

Actually, one thing that I am very sad to say has not been so fabulous is my Garmin. I am SO bummed about this. Let me explain.

Two Saturdays ago, I went on my first run with my Garmin (the rain prevented me from trying it out before this). After taking forever and a day to locate satellites, it took foreverrrrrr for the pace to update. At first, I thought I was just being impatient but after running a good 2 miles and the pace not dropping under 14 minutes/mile I started getting a little worried. I knew for sure I was not running that slow. Every once in awhile I would look down and see a 10:something mile, which is way more realistic than a 14! I pretty much spent my 14 miles checking my Garmin far too often to see if the pace had updated. Very aggravating.

I told Coach Scott and Hannah about the situation and they informed me that maybe that day I had a bad signal. I thought this could definitely explain the situation, so didn't get too worried about it. However, I ran with it again this last Saturday, along side Hannah, who has the exact same Garmin. While we were running right beside each other hers said we were running at a pace of 11:oo or so and mine said 13:30. Normal? I think not.

Hopefully all will soon be well, I called First Gear (the store it was purchased at) and he said to bring it in and he would just swap them out for me. Love that place. I plan to head there tomorrow, so hopefully next time I will have fun Garmin news!

Okay, enough of the unfabulous.

I think the greatest thing that's happened since my last post was my run this past Saturday. I had 20 miles on schedule and was worried about getting these miles in since I had plans to go to the lake on Saturday morning with a big group of friends, who were leaving town at 8:30am. I emailed Coach Scott for advice, and he basically responded with.... 4:00am Saturday, see you there.

I thought oh great, 4:00am, 20 miles, then the lake for the rest of the weekend? Impossible.

However, it ended up being amazing. It probably took us a good 4 hours and I loved every minute of it. Of course, my legs were hurting but there was never a point where I thought I couldn't do it. I absolutely loved it. I had my coach with me, my amazing friend and running buddy Hannah with me, tons of TNT teammates along the course cheering me on... how much better could it get?! This was definitely the confidence boost I needed going into these last three weeks of training.

What's 6.2 more miles? I can't wait!!!!