I need to clarify here. We actually ran 13.22--it seems they messed up on the exact milage (I wouldn't second guess our garmin :))!
I am sitting here on the couch (RELAXING) and decided what better time to write our race story than now when it is fresh on my mind.
Alarm went off at 5:00am and honestly I wanted to turn it off BUT my hubby was up and at em'.
Scarfed down a bowl (half bowl actually) of oatmeal.
Left the house at 5:45am to drop E off at some dear friends house who graciously volunteered to watch him while we indulged in this thing called running.
Arrived at the race sight at 6:55am. The first thing both of us wanted to do was go potty (the nerves were kicking in). I waited in line to pick up our packets and race stuff while daniel went and used the porta potties. Then I went--I want to interject right here that those are THE. GROSSEST. THINGS. when you have a bunch of runners who are trying to "clear themselves out" before a big run. Eeew!
Now its about 25 mins till the race starts, so we basically stand around, stretch and people watch.
The weather wasn't great. It was chilly and suppose to rain.
like I said, we did a good bit of stretching...
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Then we started popping some gels. I caught him in middle chew.
Yes this is my hubby. Isn't he a hunk? Okay don't answer that...I think he is though!
D wanted to get a little pre-race video too
Since we had no fans there :( here is our best attempt at a pre race photo of the two of us.
So race time. This was the first time they had this race at this certain place, so it was a little disorganized, but we didn't mind. They did groups of 25. Once our time got called, we headed to the line, looked at each other (with a half grin) heard the wistle, and off we went.
Honestly the first 3 miles went by so fast I didn't even know we were running. By mile 4 I was looking behind us thinking...we're already here? By mile 5 to 6 I felt my body needing another gel or two. That was probably one of the toughest times of the race.
Mile 6 was when it started raining. ugh!
Between mile 6 and 7 I saw the sign which said "mile 8" (you had to do 2 loops and I thought to myself, wow mile 8 sounds really good right now.)
Once we got to mile 8 we both seemed to be cruisin'. Talking and chatting the whole way (oh and listening to those running around us).
Popped some more gels about mile 9 and 10. Both of us seemed to have legs that were tightening at this point. Like I said earlier, this was their first race here and they had their markers all wrong. Thank goodness we had our garmin!
By mile 10 we decided to start picking it up. We seemed to be blowing past people who blew past us in the beginning. Once we hit mile 12 we were in full power mode. We crossed the finish line holding hands (awe I know :)) at 2:08:10. That's a 9:47 pace. We were hoping for a 9:09 pace, but we just didn't give ourselves enough time to train (5 weeks).
We snagged another runner to snap our picture after the race. Here we are 13.1 miles later. Wet and cold!
Sadly we didn't stay to get our medals because we really needed to head on to pick up big guy!
It was such a great feeling! We were chatting afterwords about how we are ready for the next one ;).
So that's about it.
We will (Lord willing) do it again!
Thanks for all the support!
****NEW POST BELOW BY DANIEL**** |
