05.31.09
Marathon race report - A New PR!
Posted in Races, Run, race
at 6:30 am
by luluorange ·
Digg! this story.
Today marks the one year anniversary of my first race; I celebrate it by running my second marathon. In the past year, my running resume includes two 10ks, two half marathons and two marathons. I’m having fun running races.
Today’s marathon is the Rock N Roll series marathon by elite racing held in San Diego. This is my second marathon and I found this marathon was more difficult than my first marathon in February, I’ll explain this later.
A side note, we met up with some friends who live in San Diego and spent a wonderful evening on Saturday at their beautiful home. The home happened to be right next to the starting line, I could see the my assigned corral from their home. I certainly appreciated the preview.
The morning of the marathon was nice and cool; my husband dropped me off at the starting line. I managed to find my long time friend from this site “marathonwannabe”, we chatted for a while and wished each other good luck. It was really nice to finally put a face to the name. We were also supposed to meet up with another friend from this site “xr4000″ but we missed each other.
The starting line celebration was exciting and off we go. All is well for the first 10 miles, starting mile 9 we got on to a freeway with 4 miles of slanted concrete. My weak left ankle started acting up; I tried to zigzag to find a comfortable spot but ending up wasting a lot of energy. In addition, I wore a pair of new socks that has special cushions on “hot spots” on the foot but it was a lot thicker than the socks I normally wear. That was a big mistake. By mile 12, my toes were throbbing from the expansion of my feet. By mile 18, my feet went completely numb and not in a good way. I pulled over and re-laced my shoes to loosen up and get the blood flowing again. But the damage was done.
Mile 22-24 was probably the most difficult section; I really tried to dig deep within myself to keep going. My ankle and feet were on fire, I resolve myself to give up and walk to the finish line. As I walked for a few minutes, I assessed my condition but realized that walking did not feel any better than running. I said to myself, “Hey, it doesn’t make any difference in comfort or reduce the pain, it just takes longer, hurry up and get it over with!” So, I picked up my pace again and started to run.
By mile 23, I realized that even with all the difficulties I was faced with, I was still on track to beating my previous marathon time. That gave me motivation to speed up my pace.
I also thought about my father, who passed away in 1999 when I was 31. I miss him terribly. When I was a kid, he always wanted to take me to exercise with him but I didn’t like it and often refused to go. I knew he was disappointed about that and I wish he could see me now, running a marathon.
As I was pushing thru mile 24, I imagined my dad standing on the other side of the finish line cheering for me. I saw the proud look on his face and I started to cry. I forgot about the pain I was feeling as I entered the last ½ mile with the welcoming crowd screaming and cheering. Crossing that finish line was bitter sweet. I did it!
Final stats are in:
Time – 4:47:20
Overall placement 6870 out of 13291
Women placement 2571 out of 6463
I am happy with the result; I shaved off 9 minutes from my first marathon.
Now…the aftermath of the race. The logistics at the finish line were not ideal. The ground of the marine base was huge, and various stations were very spread out. My husband was in a completely different section than where I ended up after walking out of the runner’s secure zone. It took us long time and a lot of walking to find each other. After that, the only way to get out of the base is to take a shuttle, and the line was sooooo long I couldn’t bear to wait so we walked another mile to get to the trolley station. At this point, I have a big blood blister on the ball of my foot and walking was so painful I was beside myself. When we finally got to downtown in the Gaslamp district, I was ready to pass out from pain and hunger. I walked with my space blanket on and I wore my medal. I went into a restaurant, people cheered and congratulated me, I thought that was kind of cool and of course, a big slab of Bar-B-Q Ribs and French fries really made me happy. 
Workout:
- Type: Run
- Date: 05/31/2009
- Time: 06:30:00
- Total Time: 4:47:20.00
- Calories: 3395
- Distance: 26.2 miles
- Average Pace: 10:58.14/mile
Crazy Julie (you know who :)) said,
06.02.09 at 4:10 am
CONGRAT!! Imagine how much faster you would had done if you didn’t have all those issues!! I’m so sure you could had pull a 4:30!! Ahh.. there are always next time! But congrat….. now you learned why they said “no new stuff on race day”.
You’re just this much closer to being a marathon (crazy) pro.. like me!
:D
CONGRAT AGAIN!!
Sue Hoffheins said,
06.02.09 at 4:15 am
Yeah!!! Look forward to your one up here. Details and where you will stay? You are welcome here.
Love, Mommy Sue and Dad
Hope said,
06.02.09 at 9:04 am
You did it! And your dad is proud of you. You know what? He knew you could do this, too. Congratulations!
pushback said,
06.02.09 at 1:47 pm
GREAT JOB ! You did it again.
Jacob said,
06.02.09 at 2:36 pm
I am sooo proud of you Sharey and I loved your emotional report.
marathonerwannabe said,
06.02.09 at 8:27 pm
Yeah! It was SO good to finally meet you face to face! You did a GREAT job! Seems like we all had our issues with this race. Now that I know the course I’m going to come back next year and beat my time. Of course, it won’t be hard. LOL
Tien said,
06.03.09 at 2:52 am
SOOOO PROUD of you!!! Especially for your determination to keep going and constantly challenging yourself! It’s amazing how memories of dad just pops in your head at the most unexpected times, huh? See, he knew you needed a little more motivation at the end there and just helped you along!
I miss him terribly too, especially when Mattie and Kayla does something adorable, wish he was here…
Thanks for motivating me to keep running too!
luluorange said,
06.03.09 at 3:38 am
Thank you for for your support and kind words. It means so much to me.
marathonerwannabe said,
06.03.09 at 4:46 am
Hey where is your post marathon walk workout you told me about? LOL. I’m actually going to take Brad’s advice and keep the name and be a living inspiration to othere wannabe’s that it is possible. If you notice I changed the header of my blog.
Kathy Wenzel said,
06.03.09 at 3:46 pm
Sharey, great blog! I’m very proud of you and your accomplishments and I draw inspiration from you.
My best,
Kathy
xr4000 said,
06.04.09 at 3:44 am
nice job sharey! sorry we didnt hook up but there is always next year. good to see that you were able to pr it and you know your dad WAS there and is extremely proud of you!
nw said,
06.05.09 at 1:11 am
So proud of you, great job !! Is your ankle & feet getting better? can still run nest month? Love you
greenking17 said,
06.10.09 at 5:17 pm
Wow! Great write up! Sorry i haven’t been in better touch this year with your training and racing,but great job nontheless. I’m sorry to hear about your father…trust me, my Mom has pulled me through some of my tougher miles out there as well. God bless them! hope your feeling good now, keep up the great work!
GK