26.2

A Marathon comes and goes pretty quickly for being such a long and strenuous race--especially when you compare that time to all of the training hours that you put in. Mine came and went in about 5 hours, and all I had to show for it was a blister on my right foot. Truthfully I think I was expecting a little more wear and tear and I feel lucky to have finished more or less unscathed. I past a couple runners that had to either slow down or stop completely due to injury, and one guy had to throw up his guts out around mile 24. My previous ankle woes took a vacation that day thank goodness, my bladder behaved as it should, and my head and my stomach felt great throughout. I started with a smile on my face and I ended with one. Yes, I was tired, but a very happy tired. I can check that "M" word off the list. Mission, Marriage, Mortgage, Mini-Van, MoTab, and Marathon. The last "M" must stand for Million Dollars. There are 3 questions I've been asked several times since finishing: Was it harder than you thought? Will you run another marathon? Are you completely sore all over? My answers: Yeah, sort of. I really wanted to run the whole thing and I didn't. Right around mile 19 it made sense to mix things up a little. Run in the sun, walk in the shade was my strategy. I definitely would run another marathon. To me timing is everything for training though. I figure I'll give Becky a shot at one before I sign up for another so we can manage things with our family. As far a being sore all over, my legs felt remarkably well after the race. I was much more mobile than I expected. Even when the real soreness set in the next two days I felt that I did pretty well. I still got up the next morning and made it to perform in the Sunday Morning Broadcast as well as a rehearsal afterward. Not bad. Most people wondered what I was doing at the broadcast rather than sleeping in and recovering. The broadcast was nothing compared to hosting a birthday party for my 2 year old later on that day. My folks came over, Robyn's family was here as well as Janay's. Running a marathon is much easier to me than managing 8 small children.