13.1 miles...been there...done that

OH MY HEAVENS TO BETSY...THAT WAS HARD.

Here's how this whole this started and just to warn you I'm going to write a novel here :) My friend Stefney had a dream/goal to run a 1/2 marathon and when I had lost weight I had a goal to run a 4.2 mile run so when I started training for the Pat Tilman run last Feb. she decided to start running and training for a 10K to run on Thanksgiving. Well she did a 10K before Thanksgiving and was now ready to train for the PF Chang's 1/2 marathon! She tried for a couple months to convince me to do it with her and I was like, no way, I have NO desire to run 13 miles if I had a choice, hehe. SO fast forward to Nov. after our turkey 10K run and I'm watching Biggest Loser where they made the last few contestants run a 26 mile run (a full marathon) and as I'm watching this I am so inpsired that I call Stefney right away and tell her that I can run with her because if these people can do a full one I can certainly get off my butt and do a 1/2! Everyone kept saying that part of preperations for this was totally mental and seriously, it was! I had to wrap my brain around knowing that I really could run that far but knowing I had only ever run the most of 6 miles! So I signed up and did it!!!!

Here are some funny things about this experience. First of all we had to pick up our packets on Fri. and decided we would go out to dinner afterwards. Stefney knew of this mexican whole in the wall place that people had raved about and wanted to go so we asked a news guy where it was. He told us some directions and that it was about 7 miles from where we were, so off we went. About 20 minutes into the drive we realized um, we might not be headed in the right direction. Well crap, where the heck are we? We stop to ask directions, the guy didnt' know, so we headed back towards where we came from and stopped and asked directions again and a lady knew the streets we were looking for so we continued on. After another 10 min. or so we ended up where we started and at that point Danny had called to see if we enjoyed our dinner. We laughed and said um, we are still looking for it! He got on the computer and found out exactly where we needed to go and come to find out it was literally around the corner from where we were getting our stuff!!! We were so mad at that guy because we literally drove in a huge circle that took us 45 minutes and should have taken like 5! We were so hungry at this point that we hoped it was worth all of that! We had so much fun even though we were mad. K, this place was so GOOD! We were a little nervous when we pulled up in the dark and there were bars on the windows and we were not in a good part of Phoneix but whatever. It was a dive but you know how that goes, dives are the best places to eat!

So race day was here and Stefney picked me up at 6am and we were off. We were nervous and cold. Everything went smooth to get there, no traffic, not too bad traffic to park and a ride on a school bus to the start line. There were 3 lines for the buses, some people got the line with the "Divine" bus and some got the school bus and we were the line with the school bus. It was just funny that they had such a contrast of buses to ride, lol. We got on our bus and headed out. When we got to Phoenix we were riding along with the people walking to the start line and we saw Elvis all decked out in his running gear. By the time we got to the place to be dropped off we both had to pee so bad that our bladders hurt (I had drank a whole liter of water by then) so we ran to the port a potties and waited in this super long line and in the meantime some girl must have forgetten she was in cactus land cuz she started screaming and we look over and she has this big ball of cactus stuck right in her left butt cheek!!! LOL, we were laughing as her friend was squatting down trying to pick this thing out of her butt without getting pricked herself! Oh man, what a way to start the day! We then checked in our bag and headed AGAIN to the port a potty and started off to our corrals. K, here we go, we are really doing this! The announcer gets on the speaker and says, k you have one more last chance to back out...that was funny! Mayor Gordon and Senator McCain were at the starting line cheering everyone on when they went over the start line so off we go to run 13.1 miles! There was a lot to look at, I think we woke up the homeless people sleeping on the streets, lots of bands, cheerleaders and just supporters who came out of their houses to cheer us on, it was a lot of fun. By about mile 7 I got some burst of energy and picked up the pace a tad but then a little bit later I felt my IT band start to hurt and then I felt like I had to poo but it's that constipated feeling so then I wasn't totally comfortable and I'm like, wow, this is gonna suck to run another 6 miles feeling like this but it is what it is at that point. My leg stopped hurting and I was able to get to about mile 10 and then to my dismay I had to STOP and WALK! Wow, at that point it seriously hurt my muscles to stop and walk! I was really disappointed but in my head I had already prepared mentally that I may have to walk becuase of my IT band. So for the next 2 miles I ran/walked but the feelings I felt was that I wish my leg didn't hurt because I was so excited to be almost done that I really wanted to pick up the pace and run the next 3 miles pushing myself! Well, at the last mile my leg totally gave out and I couldn't run at all and I think if I wasn't prepared that might happen, I probably would have just cried! Anyway, I finished at 2 hours and 55 min. and wanted to just lay down and curl up into a ball...I was in pain and my muscles hurt so bad! I was so glad this was over and it felt good to accomplish that.

Stefney and I met up after she used the UPS guy's phone to call my phone to leave a message so when I picked up my bag I knew where to find her. It was just comical, this experience with her :) We went to the PF Chang's tent and got some lettuce wraps and ate those, our granola bars from our friends, soaked in the events and then headed home treating ourselves to Sprinkles cupcakes and a half of an in-n-out burger. We were laughing saying we should have run in our dresses and tennis shoes so we could go straight to church after our run and pretend like nothing just fazed us but we would be all sweaty. I guess you probably had to be there because I think we were just acting so strange from lack of sleep and on a high. There were some interesting outfits during the run and I wish I could have had a camera to capture some moments. All in all now that I've had some time to think about this whole thing I might actually run another one, really prepared, not have my leg hurt so I can push myself and really see what I'm made of :)

Thank you to all my friends who had the faith in me that I could do this and for Stefney to push me!