Catching Up - February & Mardi Gras

Hello hello!  I am back in action for March after a fun, exhausting weekend in St. Louis!  We have so much to catch up on so let's get started...

Last Week's Running:

Tuesday - 4.25 miles OUTSIDE

Wednesday - 2 miles

Friday - 4.17 miles

Total - 10.42 miles

So the week wasn't very impressive, but I have to say that at least Tuesday and Friday's run were a good pace!

When I got to St. Louis on Friday, Angela and I went for a run at Queeny Park.  She told me it was a super hilly park and it was exactly that.  The loop we did was just over 4 miles and it was rough.  Most of the first mile was flat, except for one huge uphill.  Right when we got to the top, the Garmin buzzed that we did that first mile in 7:45.  We were both shocked because it felt very relaxed (except for when we had to power up the big hill).  The 2nd and 3rd miles were a combo of both up and down - 7:35 and 7:44.  Then the 4th mile was mostly flat, and we took it nice and relaxed at 8:01.  I was beat by this time and glad I didn't throw up my lunch because we ate only an hour before!

We were having some selfie-taking issues, but finally got a decent one and at least it shows off the success of my teeth whitening!  Also it was sooo warm!  We were wearing pants and long sleeves, but felt like I could've taken off the long sleeve top if I needed to (I had a short sleeve top underneath...it's not quite sports bra only weather yet.)

February Running Recap:

Total Miles - 92.77

Total Runs - 19

Average Miles per Run - 4.9 miles

All in all, I think the total mileage for the month was OK.  It's definitely not where I want to be, but when I compare to previous Februaries, it looks pretty strong.  Given the fact that the entire month was basically on the treadmill, I guess I really can't ask for much more.

Total mileage was significantly higher than January!  But average miles per run was lower (it was 5.5 in January).  But, 2 of the February days were two-a-days, so my average miles per day would be higher.  On another positive note, it looks like this was my highest February mileage:

I can't really guarantee that this is 100% accurate because I know I fell off logging my runs a few random periods at a time, but I would say this is probably accurate for February mileage.  I know for sure I logged my runs consistently in 2013 and that's the year I really want to compare to now!

 

But enough running talk for now, here's How I Rang in March:

Mardi Gras in St. Louis!  St. Louis has the 2nd biggest Mardi Gras celebration, behind New Orleans of course.  Liz and I started our morning with a trip to Starbucks and the grocery store for bagels (and to get cash back so we'd have money for the day).  Around 9:30am, the drinking games started and the rest of the day was probably the most fun I've had in a really long time!

We made it down to Soulard (the St. Louis neighborhood with the big Mardi Gras parties) in the late morning and met up with my brother, his girlfriend, and cousins Kevin and Katie.  It was quite the family affair :)

Sunday was a day of recovery and the weather in St. Louis was perfect for staying inside.  We did get out for lunch though at a cute little restaurant called Winslow's Home.
Next up on the social schedule is St. Patty's Day in Chicago!  I can only hope March will bring more warmth and more running miles (it's a direct relationship...I'm about finished with the treadmill.)

I'm also really hoping to have my new blog up and running this week so stay tuned for that!

Did you/are you celebrating Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday this weekend/today?

How was your February?

Weekly Running Recap - 2/17 - 2/23

Don't you just love Mondays?  I do, because it means I can get all analytical and see how my previous week of running was:

 

Monday - 6 miles w/ 2 x 1 mile fast

Tuesday - 5.5 miles

Wednesday - REST

Thursday - am - 2.3 miles easy outside; pm - 4.5 miles including tempo

Friday - 5.5 miles

Saturday - REST

Sunday - 3.9 miles

 

Total - 27.7 miles

 

So total mileage for the week was nothing special...definitely not up to where I want to be.  But I do think I more quality miles in there than I previously have.  And I suppose that's better because my next race distance is 5 miles, followed a week later by 6-7 miles in a marathon relay.  I'm not training for a marathon right now.  I am however, going to run a half marathon in late April or early May (not sure which one yet!), so I do need to be getting in higher mileage for that.

As for Friday's and Sunday's runs:

Friday - I ran 5.5 miles in 45: 35 for 8:17 average pace/mile on the treadmill at the Y.  Nothing special really.  I was planning to go for 8-10 miles, but I just couldn't stand the treadmill anymore.  That thing is killing me now.

Sunday - I ran OUTSIDE!!  Yay!!  I did 3.9 miles in 33 minutes for 8:28 average pace/mile.  I came extremely close to landing on my butt after sliding on some ice, but I used my awesome ninja skills to somehow stay on my feet.  The sidewalks were mostly clear, but still some icy or wet patches that were difficult to navigate.  I moved to the streets though (side streets) and it was a lot better then.  I struggled a lot at the start because it was so cold, but eventually warmed up and felt like I could've ran further (and maybe should have) but I also didn't want to be away from the house for too long because...

 

I was babysitting my younger cousins all weekend!  I got to do some fun, sports-related things with them this weekend:

 

Ryan had basketball games on both Saturday and Sunday and won both of them!

I forgot how entertaining grade school basketball is. It's so much better than watching college or NBA basketball.

Saturday night, Shannon's high school track team had time trials and parents were invited to a meeting and to watch the time time trials. Since this is right up my alley, I tagged along with Shannon as her parent for the night.

 

 

She did the pole vault, recording a tie with her personal record of 7 feet. Shannon missed all of outdoor season last year due to a surgery so I'm sure she will improve quite a bit this year!

She also ran the 400 and won her heat!

Other than that we did a lot of bumming around, watching movies & sports, and eating pizza, Thin Mints, Cheez-Its, and Portillo's.

What is the best part about your Monday?

What is your favorite track event?

Weekly Running Recap - 2/10 - 2/16

It's Monday, which only means one thing - time for a recap of last week's running:

Monday - 5 miles (7:57 avg pace)

Tuesday - 3 miles (8:00 avg pace) + Body Pump

Wednesday - 4.75 miles (8:25 avg pace)

Thursday - REST

Friday - 9.1 miles in the morning (8:01 avg pace) + 3 miles in the evening (no watch)

Saturday - REST

Sunday - REST

 

Total - 24.9 miles + 1 BodyPump class



 

My mileage for the week wasn't super high, but I am still really happy with the week, especially since I got in that longer 9 mile run on Friday.  And I loved that I was able to get in an outdoor fun run, instead of all treadmill miles like the past few weeks.

 

I didn't mean to take the weekend off, but it was nice to just relax.  On Saturday, I went to brunch with Catherine.  Unfortunately, it was not a bRUNch (run + brunch), but we will pick those up again once it gets warmer.

 

And I got my Garmin fixed so that when the weather does get nicer, I can use it again!  It was temporarily not functioning.  Apparently all I needed to do was a software update.

 

Actually, today isn't just any other Monday.  Today, is 2/17.  It's my cousin Erin's birthday!!  Here's some photos of us from our favorite holiday, Christmas:

 



 

To celebrate, Erin will be going to the Justin Timberlake concert (JT is to Erin as Katy Perry is to me), so I am going to meet up with her to get our nails done.

 

I have to give major props to Erin for basically being the reason I started this blog.  She has been an avid blog reader for awhile and got me started on it last spring, and by the time the summer and Chicago Marathon training rolled around, I wanted to start my own and she encouraged it!

 

I haven't really wrote about set weekly goals in awhile, but I think I'm going to start that up again today.  Here's what I want to do (running/fitness-wise) this week:

 

• Run 35-40 miles
• Do a speed workout!
• Go to Body Pump twice
• Focus on healthy eating

So nothing super crazy or new, but I do want to get a speed workout in!  On the treadmill I've been getting to good speeds (7:30 or faster) when I do my normal runs (which I guess are actually more like progression-ish run).  However, I haven't done set "speed work-outs" and that's what I want to start working in now.  I'm going to try to come up with some workouts to do that will be good for a shorter race since my next goal race is the Shamrock Shuffle 8K.  I'll definitely be posting those workouts as I come up with them!  And I'll still be on the treadmill, so I think try some hill/incline workouts that Catherine sent me.

Complete this phrase: _________ is to me as Katy Perry is to Colleen.

What are you goals for the week (fitness or not)?

Back to Double Digits

After stressing all week about how I probably wouldn't get a long run in this week, I did!  Because of the cold and snow, I was on the treadmill all week and wasn't really getting myself to go over 4 miles. So doing 10 miles on the treadmill right now seems like a huge stretch.  But luckily, temperatures got into the 30s and the snow was melted from the sidewalks (for the most part) by yesterday morning.

I had plans to go out for the Dayton basketball game for a 10am game Saturday morning, but also really wanted to get my long run in that morning.  So I woke up at 6:30am, yet still laid in bed until about 7:15 when I finally talked myself into getting up since I wasn't falling back asleep anyways.

My goal was to do 8-10, but I really wanted to get up to 10 to get into the double digits.  I need to have AT LEAST one double-digit run every week for marathon training, hopefully up to the point where I have 2 every week.

Unfortunately, I'm at my parents' house right now and left my Garmin at my apartment so I can't tell you my exact splits...which I'm really upset about.  But they were all between 7:26 and 8:33 if I remember correctly.  From what I remember, the first few were about 8:10-8:30, then picked it up more to right at 8:00.  The 7:26 mile was a fluke...I'm pretty sure I had a 7:47, 7:55, and 7:59, but other than that, nothing crazy fast.  It ended up being 10.05 (I am an awesome route planner to not make myself do any more than necessary) at an average of 8:06...slightly over 1:21 total time.

Some things of note on the run:

There were a surprising number of people out running!

I ran mostly on the city sidewalks.  About 2.5 miles in, I was on the sidewalk of Wacker Drive, which is a pretty busy street, just minding my own business and a car drove through a big puddle I guess and BLASTED me with a shower of ice cold water.  My iPod now surely has water damage...but it still works.  Otherwise I would probably have to somehow hunt down that person and make them pay for me to get a new iPod.

After that incident, I was quite wet/cold for awhile, but it got better eventually.  I did make my way onto the lakefront path for about 2 miles, but then went back to the city streets.  I had heard the polar vortex we had last week caused "ice balls" in Lake Michigan and I was really hoping I'd see some, but I did not.

So besides getting drenched in icy water, the run was actually uneventful.  I'm just glad I made it up to 10!  And then I got ready as quickly as possible to head straight to the bar for the basketball game...work hard, play hard.

Dayton lost :(  But I got to go out with some UD friends (some who I haven't seen in ages) as well as my cousin Katie.  She goes to SLU, which is who we were playing, but we are very accepting.

On another note...I don't think I've posted many pictures here on the blog lately, but I have dark hair again now.  No more blonde.

I'm Back! And have an ENERGYbits Giveaway Winner!

So, I fell off the face of the blogging Earth.  And kinda off the face of the real Earth too, if that makes you feel any less neglected.  Life got pretty busy the last few weeks with work and the holidays.  And honestly, I wasn't running or working out much at all so didn't have anything meaningful to talk about except random ramblings.  Sometimes those are fun too though.  Here are a few snapshots of things I have done over the last few weeks:

Twin Day!  I can't pass up a good opportunity to post a twin day picture.  I think when my blog gets super duper popular, I will start posting an outfit that everyone should wear and then you can all send me your twin day pictures.  Or it will just continue to be Grace and I matching from afar.  And on Wednesdays, we wear pink.

And while we're at it, Grace and I had another twin day while she was in town!!  Go Bears!

My cousins Katie and Kelly and I also had a twin night.  We wore our matching footie pajama onesies, decorated Christmas cookies, and watched Elf.

Christmas Eve with the Smiths is probably my favorite day of the year.  We had a lot to chat about now that 2 of the Smith girl cousins are engaged!!

We played a few games.  In this one, two people had one of each of their hands tied together and then had to use the 2 remaining hands to wrap a present and use ribbon to put a bow on it.  Katie and I won in 2 minutes and 9 seconds.  We were all very competitive.  Mom and Dad were a close 2nd.  I think they had an advantage since Mom is a lefty.

And we sang some songs.

And now it's almost a new year, things should be calming down a bit, and I have started to pick up the running again!  But I'll get to the running details in my next post, which I promise will be tomorrow and not in 2.5 weeks.

I FINALLY have a winner for my ENERGYbits giveaway!  I'm sorry it took my so long to announce, it was not an expected blogging hiatus.  I used the Excel random number generator and the winner is.....

Congrats Jackie, I know you will love them!!  Send me an email with your address and you will receive your sample of ENERGYbits in the mail  :)

Have you had a crazy busy holiday season too?

What was the best thing you did over the past few weeks?

(Long) Weekend Photo Bomb - 11/27 - 11/30

It's been a nice long holiday weekend off of work and I've been busy with all sorts or activities.  I did 2 races (a 5k and a half marathon) and will have a full recap of those in the next few days, but in the meantime, here's the long weekend in pictures:

Dinner and gambling at the casino.  Dad hasn't quite figured out that the iPhone can be turned sideways to get everyone in the picture.  Mom and Patrick were the big winners of the night.

Catherine and I ran the Edison Park Turkey Trot 5k (like we do every year) in matching turkey headbands and tiger-print shorts.

My dear little cousin, Elizabeth.  We share a love for bread.  I told her that's called carbo-loading and she helped me carbo-load for Saturday's race  :)  On Friday, we celebrated her new baby brother's Baptism.

Post-half marathon selfie.  Very cold!

All aboard!  The entire Smith family (and "SigOs" - significant others) took a Christmas trolley ride through the city.

A few of the girls, ready to go.

View of the Chicago skyline from Smith trolley stop #1.

 Dad and I at the Lincoln Park Zoo Lights - Smith trolley stop #2.

Things escalated quickly... even had to make a few extra stops for beer/champagne runs (and bathroom runs).

Started the weekend with gambling, why not end it with a little family gambling?   A pizza party after the trolley and a 30+ person game of LCR - Shannon was the big winner.

And another running selfie.  An easy 4 miles Sunday morning in my all purple outfit.  Just kidding, I put another shirt on over that, but thought it looked funny when I was wearing all purple so I had to take a picture.

So there's the long weekend in pictures!  How was your long weekend?  What did you do??

Happy Halloween from Colleen :)

I like when my name rhymes with things, so that's why Halloween is a good holiday.  But here's some other reasons why:

Candy.  Free candy.

My favorite Halloween candy will always be Kit Kats I think.  M&M's and Nerds were also big favorites of mine.  I eat M&M's on the reg, but I don't think I've had Nerds in forever.  It's not candy, but here's a cupcake I ate (at 9am) from a co-worker:

Costumes.

There is no costume in the world that will ever be as good as my parrot costume.  I wore it multiple years and I love it and wish I had it for my children, but it is gone forever.  I am unfortunately not wearing the wings in this picture, but you can kind of see the tail - the wings were awesome and colorful like that.

Senior year of college, I was Pippy Longstocking.  My roommate Colleen, who now has her very own running blog too, did my hair really awesome like that.

I was Dora the Explorer during 5th year of college.  The night before I was Dora, I was a gymnast which was also an awesome costume but I unfortunately have no pictures of.  I wore my cousin Katie's red, white, and blue leotard and matching scrunchy with tons of glitter in my hair.  Anyways, I bought the Dora the Explorer backpack, kept the tag on, then returned it after.  That's how it's done.

 

Being a troll with Christina was easily the best costume of my adult life (thus far).  My hair had remnants of green in it for days, no matter how hard I scrubbed, but it was worth it.  I haven't worn the nude body suit since, but I hope to one day soon.

The annual Halloween card from the Grandparents Smith.

My freshman year of college was the first year of this card.  It has since become an annual happening.  The front says, "A Scary Thought" and on the inside, "Life Without God." Usually they include a $1, but this year it was even better...at least for me that is.  A scratch off lotto ticket was inside and I won $10!  This year's card also had 3 riddles to solve; do you know the answers?

What do ghosts serve for dessert?

Who won the skeleton beauty contest?

What do witches put on their hair? 

St. Louis Half Marathon & Weekend Happenings

This past weekend was the Rock 'N Roll St. Louis Half Marathon!  I ran the whole thing with my brother's girlfriend Erin and it was her first half marathon ever and I'm sure she wants to keep doing more and more.  Look how happy she was:

I didn't get to St. Louis until late Saturday night, but the Cardinals World Series game was still on, so Erin had made some pasta for me and we watched the game.  Unfortunately, it looked like the game was going to go into extra innings and we needed to be up super early, so we turned it off in the 9th.  Apparently the game ended (with a Cardinals win!) shortly after we hit the hay.

So, race morning.  We woke up and got ready to run!  We had bought matching Lululemon tank tops, but it was a bit too chilly for that.  I advised Erin to eat a bagel and some GU Chomps energy bites and I did the same.  When we got to the start line, I needed to grab my bib and t-shirt since I didn't make it to St. Louis in time to go to the expo.  But that was surprisingly quick and then we jumped in the corral and it was time to go within a few minutes.

The first few miles of the race were through downtown St. Louis, which was cool because it was sunrise and we ran towards the Arch and then around Busch Stadium.  We were each wearing coats over our running clothes because it was so cold at the start, but took them off around mile 2-3.  Luckily, we knew we'd see Katie around mile 5 because the course went right by her SLU apartment.  We ran to her, gave her a quick hug and our coats and continued on.

I was very colorful...and cold.

The race really wasn't that eventful.  Erin had hoped to maintain at 10 minute mile, but we were going much faster staying right around a 9 minute mile.  One of the later miles was even 8:40 and I think she was shocked at how fast she was able to go considering she hadn't trained this pace!  We were even chatting and having fun taking some pictures and videos.  And I will have those videos for you in my next post hopefully...they were taken on my iPod that I was running with, which I left at home today.  Anyways, there were some pretty killer hills, but we maintained a solid pace and finished in 1:56:45!!  Woohoo congrats Erin!!  Erin's mom also ran her first half marathon and finished faster than the first place marathoner!  (That was the goal.)

The pace was fairly comfortable for me, but having run only 2 3-miles runs in the past 2 weeks since the Chicago Marathon, diving right into 13 with those hills did my knees some damage.  They are fine now, but they sure hurt for the whole day.

My cousin Kevin had a funny tweet this weekend:

That's kind of how I feel about blogging.  I feel like a failure if I don't have photo proof of everything I did to show here.  But I can promise I really did go out to dinner with Angela and Liz on Sunday night in St. Louis.  And we were so deep in conversation and sat at the restaurant for so long after paying, that the obvious choice was to move our party over to the nearby fro yo place.

We had such a great time catching up with each other and talking about running and dorm food...and how we ran so much that we could eat so much dorm food.  And then we started reminiscing about the good ole days at UD.

I wasn't driving back to Chicago until Monday, so in the morning I went to breakfast at Einsten brothers with my 2 Billiken cousins, Katie and Kevin.  We had a great time catching up and talking about the upcoming holidays and of course, the event of the summer that we CANNOT wait for - the first Smith cousin wedding.

How was your weekend?

Do you like to take pictures documenting everything you do?

My Chicago Marathon Super Fans

I remind my family quite frequently that I had nobody watching me in my very first marathon in Columbus of 2010.  My parents (and all the other aunts and uncles) had a 50th wedding anniversary party to go to that weekend and Columbus is about a 6 hour drive from Chicago.

But they all made up for it at this year's Chicago Marathon!  I didn't expect so many family members to come, but my family sure does love running.  (We even have our own marathon, 2 years strong.)

I'm not 100% sure, but I think they all planned to wear red on purpose.  I knew to look for my family around mile 4.5 first and was told Aunt Mary Ellen would have a red Elmo balloon.  Sure enough, I spotted them all.  I hope they weren't too bored while waiting, but it seems like that got some good family photos in the meantime.  (And obviously they didn't have to wait too long since I was RIGHT behind the Kenyans, duh.)

 They all had really great signs too!

Besides my family, I also had a lot of friends come out and cheer too!  Catherine and Matt were at miles 3.5 and 16.5.

Wondering what a TIGER BODYSLAM is?  Catherine's main track event in high school was the 2 mile race.  If you've ever been to a track meet, distance events aren't nearly as fun to watch as sprints and given the longer distance, the field of competition is pretty spread out.  A lot of times, the slower runners end up getting lapped by the faster runners.  To take care of this problem, at one meet the 2 mile race was called "Tiger takes the Tail" where the runner in last place after each lap of the 2 mile race would be stopped and not allowed to finish the race.

So basically, we decided that for this to happen, the tiger mascot person would body slam the person in last place and not let them finish. I'm glad I didn't get tiger bodyslammed during the marathon.

Steph and Danny were around mile 17-18 I think?  I don't remember that clearly, but Steph was jumping up and down with her sign.

Christina and Jim were around mile 6 with a big pirate balloon and n awesome sign that said "Your feet hurt because you're kickin' butt!"

I tried to remember other good signs, but my brain was kind of fried while running.  One said "Run quietly, I'm hungover" and then all the standard ones like "Worst Parade Ever."

But back to my fans...

I think the most mobile group of fans was Uncle Ron, Uncle Rob, and Jessica.  They were at 16, 18, and 20...as well as the earlier miles 4 and 10.  They used a car, which proved a better strategy than the other group who walked and barely missed me at 17.

Another perk of having fans at the race is that they can take pictures and I don't have to pay for the professional ones if I wanted a picture.  However, this does not improve the quality of how I look while I run.

I really loved my headband...I don't know if I can give enough plugs for how awesome those Sweaty Bands work to hold my hair back and are also glittery and thus, awesome.

I also spotted a few other people I knew along the course which was good to see.  And of course, the other 1.7 million strangers were great to see as well.  So thank you to everyone who was able to come out and cheer!

And also thank you to my fans who were not physically there, but texted me throughout the days leading up to the race and afterwards.  Some of my friends even made signs, took pictures of themselves holding the signs, and then mailed me the pictures.  :)

Race Recap: CHICAGO MARATHON 2013

Well, the Chicago Marathon is over!  I have so much to say about it and don't know where to start, so this will probably end up a little scattered, but I'll do my best.  And I'll also probably have a post every day this week on various events of race weekend (the expo, the pasta party, the recovery, etc.) but I'll try to keep this one to the actual race recap.

Summary/spoiler alert: I finished in 3:23:15!  A PR by close to 6 minutes and Boston Qualifier!

My parents dropped off Angela, Olivia, and I as close as they could to the starting area and we made our way through the security checkpoints.  The weather turned out to be absolutely perfect for marathon running, but the morning was rather chilly.  We were wearing clothes that we could discard at the start line and never see again - to be donated to a homeless shelter in Chicago.  Angela and I discarded our clothes right before entering the corral and a man with a vest that said "Clothing Donations" was on his walkie talkie saying "we are going to need way more bins."  There were mountains of sweatpants and sweatshirts all around.

We also waited in a really long porta-potty line...but glad we did so before the race.  Once we got settled in a spot in the corral, it was time to go within about 5-10 minutes.

The first 8 miles of the race flew by.  It was definitely the easiest/most fun hour-ish of running I've ever done.  Our goal was to start at 8 minute pace for 4 miles and then pick it up to 7:30-7:40.  I don't remember splits exactly, but I think the first mile was 7:49 so we said we could ease up a bit.  The problem was that we were stuck behind the 3:30 pace group which was huge and taking up a lot of space all running together.  So over the next 3 miles, we were still doing about 7:45-7:50 working our way up and around that 3:30 group, but still not trying to go too fast.

We saw so many people throughout the course - the first being Catherine and Matt around mile 3.  I almost missed them but luckily they saw us and called out...and I heard them over my awesome playlist of music which will be a whole separate post because obviously you need to know exactly what I listened to for 26.2 miles.

 

I think I could also write a decent amount on all my spectators and signs, so I will save that for later, but the important thing right now is that I saw my family around mile 4.5 for the first time and I was STARVING (I'll explain why when I write about the pasta party...do you like all my cliffhangers?) so I yelled to my mom to buy me a bagel.

Sure enough, when I saw them again around mile 11, my dad had the bagel for me so I grabbed half and ate it while running.  I took water at every water stop, and Gatorade at I think only 2 during the first half and every station the 2nd half.  Apparently when you lose a lot of sodium, your body essentially starts producing salt, so I had a white ring around my face when I finished.  I also took GU Energy Gel 3 times throughout the race - around miles 9, 16, and 22.

Angela and I didn't talk much throughout the race, but when we did, the conversation went like this:

*Pass a mile marker*

"7:32"

"We should slow down a little and save it for later"

"Yeah, we should"

*Pass a mile marker*

"7:26"

"We should slow down"

"Yeah, we should"

*Pass a mile marker*

"7:34"

"This is comfortable, but we should maybe slow down a little more"

"Yeah, we should"

But we did not slow down.  I personally am glad we did not...hopefully Angela feels OK about it.  I know it is best to run negative or even splits (or even slightly positive splits at the marathon distance since negative/even splits are extremely difficult at that distance), but I also knew that by the time we were at mile 9, I needed to just go with it while I felt good.  And I did feel really good.  Angela decided to ease up a little and dropped back from me around mile 15-16.

(professional photo by MarathonFoto)

Around mile 19, Mac magically appeared.  I was very surprised because he had passed Angela and I around mile 10, but apparently he made a bathroom pit stop somewhere along the way.  He and I ran together for about the next 2 miles until he started to fade back a little.

I was actually pleasantly surprised with how even my pacing was for all of the race.  Yes, I died off the last 10k, but not nearly as much as I could have (or did during my previous marathons).  I ran it pretty exactly according to my plan.  Since I knew I wanted to beat my time from the Columbus Marathon in 2010 and I knew my splits from that race at the 10k, half, and 20 mile marks, that's what I was comparing myself to.  I was 1:40 ahead of pace at the 10k, which worried me a little because I was afraid maybe we did go out a little too fast.  But actually, I remember thinking I was only 40 seconds ahead...not a minute and 40 seconds.

(professional photo by MarathonFoto) 

And it's a good thing I did think that because at the half, I was 58 seconds ahead of my first half of Columbus.  And knowing myself, if I would've thought that I went from being 1:40 ahead of pace to only 0:58 ahead of pace, that might've mentally screwed me up a bit...but what you don't know can't hurt you.

After we hit the halfway mark, my plan was just to make it to 20 as fast as I could, knowing that no matter what, the last 10k was going to be miserable.  I wanted to/thought I could be at mile 20 between 2:31 and 2:34.  My brain was shut down at this time, but I think I remember being there right around 2:32:00 - 2:32:30, which was 2 to 2 and a half minutes ahead of my Columbus pace.  I didn't mentally put that split into my head though because I thought they recorded a 20 mile split with the chip so I figured I'd look later, but I guess not.

(professional photo by MarathonFoto)

Where I started to really struggle was around mile 18.  I knew I had about an hour or so to go and knew I could do it, but that's where I did start to experience some mental doubt in how fast I could realistically do those last 8 miles...I went from feeling pretty awesome to not so great pretty darn quickly.  I made the decision to walk through the next water stop I saw and that I'd walk through each one after that, which is also exactly what I did in Columbus.

So I would run all the way to the very last Gatorade person at each water station, take that cup, and start walking while I drank it and then take one of the very first cups of water, drink what I could, and make myself start running.  I imagine each stop was about 30 seconds, but really I had no concept of time.  I once again surprised myself with the fact that I really did make myself start running ASAP after drinking my liquids.

The last mile was pretty much the worst thing ever, especially "Mt. Roosevelt," the small hill within in the final 400 meters of the course. By this point I really knew I was going to finish in a great time though, so that made me push throug that final mile. And I saw Aunt Bernadette  saying "you're doing it!" Because she knew I would PR.

And then I finished!!

 (professional photo by MarathonFoto)

So I have a lot more details I could share and want to share, but those will come later this week because I've done enough rambling for now.  Basically, the race went as perfect as it could have and my pacing was better (more even...not quite as much dying at the end) than I could've ever expected from myself.