Marathon Training Chronicles- Installment # 14

My very first marathon is in the books! It took me a whole week to get on here and share this because life has gotten a little hectic. Unfortunately, all the craziness has kinda sorta put a damper on this big achievement but I owe it to myself, and the handful of you that are invested in my journey, to share how it all went down.

The day started a little before 5 am. Nick and I woke up and quickly got ourselves ready and out the door by 5:25. We wanted to give ourselves plenty of time to get a decent parking spot, go to the bathroom and find our way to the starting line.

We got there with enough time to hop on line for the bathrooms. Ahhh, the joy of the pre-run nervous shits. I think this is a thing. At least it is for me. Lol. Meanwhile, Nick had to take off his compression leggings and turn them right side in. We were off to a good start. 🤪

After we were all situated we made our way to the start line. I had to say goodbye to my sweatshirt at this time because there was no way I was going to run with it on. (RIP Island Vibes camo sweatshirt). At 7:30 on the dot, we were off!

We planned to run together for as long as we could. We started off a little faster than our usual pace- just under 9 minute mile pace and continued to run between 8:50-9:15 min miles for the first 16 miles. Miles 17 and 18, we started to slow down. And we were separated between miles 19-20.

At mile 20, I had the thought “I can do this. I’m going to do this.” I knew it wouldn’t be pretty. But I knew I could push out another 6.2 miles. Between miles 20-24 I walked and ran on and off. I tried to run for 2 minutes, walk for 1. I was in pain but nothing specific, it was more just being tired and thirsty AF. The water and Gatorade at the water stops was not cutting it. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on a bottle of water.

At 24.2 miles I started to jog and said to myself I can push through and finish this race running the rest of the way. And I did! I finished the race in 4:13:16. It was a 9:40/ mile pace and it was incredible to not only crush my goal of finishing the race but also the goal of finishing in under 4:30:00 AND under 10/mile pace. At the risk of sounding like a weenie, I freaking crushed it!!!

Running a marathon isn’t easy. It took a whole lot of dedication- there was a lot of time and energy put into planning my training. I learned a lot about myself and about what works for me and what doesn’t. I was extremely fortunate to have such an amazing support system to help make this happen. And I can’t wait to do it again in the future.