Marathon thoughts and musings:
There are certain warm-ups and exercises I typically don't do in public because they look too ridiculous. Apparently, the average marathon runner has no shame about this. I walked into the stadium and people were lying on the floor and kicking their legs every which way.
A local rapper was volunteering and I wanted to say hi, but he was busy.
I completely forgot that they sing the national anthem at big races. It's ridiculous. I was not prepared to be in a crowd of people with their hands on their hearts, singing along.
The race was sponsored by an insurance company, and a representative from the insurance company gave us a pep talk before we started running. That was also weird.
I fell TWICE. Once before the start line. The first time wasn't really my fault. It was just a few seconds after the race started, and people were jogging to the start line. Someone behind me stood on the back of my shoe, and when I tried to jog forward, I couldn't move my foot in the way I expected and I crashed to the ground and hurt my OTHER knee before I even got started. Cool, cool. Then around mile 3 or so, I was running on the freeway and just tripped over something. Do I need to talk to my neurologist about this? I've fallen four times recently.
I put my afternoon pills in my pocket so I wouldn't be late with my dose. I neglected to consider that I would get very sweaty, so many of my pills melted in my pocket. I had to stop around mile 10 because an Aleve I stashed in there got stuck in a weird fold and it would NOT come out.
My main goal was to finish in the time limit and not poop myself. My second goal was under 6 hours. I didn't know how I'd handle the hills. I accomplished everything I wanted to!
The worst area was a very long stretch where we had to run on gravel. And to make it worse, it looped back around so we had to do it twice.
My Fitbit says I climbed 131 flights of stairs. It was hills.
We also had to run over a VERY slippery bridge. There was a professional photographer there, and I can't wait to see the pictures of me running while pretending that I wasn't terrified of falling. I had a BIG SMILE most of the time. Smile every mile!
Miles 22-25 were horrendous. My legs felt like lead. I drank some Nuun and felt better at the end, though!
I saw swans! I'd never seen swans before!
I was passed by more than one speed walker. It's humbling.
To my surprise, I'm not really in pain and I feel fine.