The Nike Women's Marathon was last Sunday, and I consider it a success. I flew in early Friday morning and met my friend Robin for a girl's weekend of sightseeing (and a long run thrown in).
There is the finish line. The fog hid it until I was right upon it... that was probably the most frustrating mile of my life!
Here I am 4 hours and 57 minutes after I started. No, not my fastest time, but it was definitely my best marathon. I never hit the wall; I never got angry; I was never absolutely discouraged (I've suffered all those things in every one of my other marathons).
This blog will detail the run, and tomorrow I'll put pictures of the sights.
So here I am on Friday, getting ready to pick up my running packet at Union Square. We stayed about a third of a mile from the starting line, which was perfect. San Francisco was basically turned into one huge Niketown for the weekend.
This is about 6:30 a.m. on Sunday. The race started at 7:00, so I am all nervous energy here in the hall outside our room. Ready to go!
There is the finish line. The fog hid it until I was right upon it... that was probably the most frustrating mile of my life!
Here I am 4 hours and 57 minutes after I started. No, not my fastest time, but it was definitely my best marathon. I never hit the wall; I never got angry; I was never absolutely discouraged (I've suffered all those things in every one of my other marathons).
My arms are full of goodies: a t-shirt, a Tiffany's necklace, granola, a smoothy... you name it, I was carrying it around in my happy stupor.
And here I am back in the hotel with my swag and and warm, dry fleece. I ended up coming in around 1,900 out of 20,000 runners, which I'm pretty pleased about. It says nothing for my time, really. I just means there were a whole bunch of women much slower than I was.
I wasn't sore afterward, and I didn't have any blisters. Just the usual chafing and overall fatigue.
And here I am back in the hotel with my swag and and warm, dry fleece. I ended up coming in around 1,900 out of 20,000 runners, which I'm pretty pleased about. It says nothing for my time, really. I just means there were a whole bunch of women much slower than I was.
I wasn't sore afterward, and I didn't have any blisters. Just the usual chafing and overall fatigue.
While I enjoyed this marathon, I didn't have that relieved feeling afterward that I've had after all the others. I knew I would live through it, and I was pretty sure I would do okay. I'm ready for another challenge.
I'm thinking I need to either start running them faster, or I need to start looking in ultra-marathons. I could have done four more miles last Sunday. The shortest ultra-marathon is 30 miles. I'm thinking- if I can do 26.2, I can do 30. Does that sound crazy? Maybe just a little.
2 comments:
CONGRATS! 1,900 out of 20,000 sounds pretty impressive to me. Using your words, "Not too shabby!"
Top 10%...pretty darn good! Maybe you should try a triathalon next...I've hear those are pretty hard too ;)
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