Pre Race
I was excited at the thought of putting 26.2 miles…IN. THE.
BOOKS! My goals included enjoying the experience until I no longer enjoyed the
experience and a finish time of 6:59:59 or not. I am always happy to have THE. BEST. HUSBAND. EVER support me, but it is even sweeter when he is participating and earning his own bling (he did the 10k)
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| Me and THE. BEST. HUSBAND. EVER! |
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| My "Do Epic Shit" face! |
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| Me, Brandi, Stella, and Anitra...and random lady...lol |
Miles 1-11
I felt great and I actually enjoyed these miles. I
maintained a comfortable pace using 2:1 walk/run intervals, I danced to the
music, and took pictures with friends and strangers. I stopped at the
port-o-potty, stretched, and enjoyed these miles (except for the horrible
street conditions).
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| Natalie Reed...one of my favorite people, she was a very bright spot for miles 10ish to 12 |
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| Disco Lady |
Mile 12-The split
Yeah…so this is where the mind games began. I
was irritated and hot. As much as I wanted to go right, I didn’t want to go
right. I don’t quit. I also noticed that
the RnR mile markers were short by 0.25 miles; this bothered me every time my
Garmin turned over a new mile and I could see the course mile marker 0.25 miles
away. That’s all I have to say about mile 12.
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| Who is she smiling at? |
Miles 13.1-14 (No pictures for mile 13.1-25, this was a very dark time in my life...lmao)
Mile 15-18
I sat on the curb to cry and stretch. Hot. Irritable. Cursing.
Prayers. Laughs. Dancing. Fussin’. I wanted to be naked because my clothes
hurt. I felt all the compression in my CW-X tights, my bra felt like it was too
little, and my hydration vest felt like it weighed 20 pounds. I got a cramp,
ate salt, and trotted to catch up with Brandi and Stella.
Miles 19-22
The dumbest shit ever! The turn around point was sooooooooo
freakin’ far. As we were making our way into mile 20-something-ish, we see the
RnR course officials make a couple of participants cut their course short and
cross over to head back. I felt bad for them. I think this freaked Brandi out
because she started talking about the time, why they were turned around…blah…blah…blah.
I was already irritated so this didn’t help. I reassured Brandi and Stella that
they could go ahead because I was not worried about my time and I did not have
anymore run left; what I had left was for the finish line. Brandi said
something like “I ain’t going nowhere!” Don’t quote me, but it was something
like that…lol We were on each other’s nerves, but never left each other. Poor
Stella, she prayed a lot…lol
Mile 23
I had a little more energy and felt excited; I knew all I
had was a 5k and I would be finished. I could see a woman ahead of us who
seemed to be going through one of the many emotions I had experienced during
several points during the race. Her stride was slow and I heard someone say to
her “you can do it.” As I got closer to
her, she was crying, her name was Shontell. Shontell asked “where’s the van,
are we going to make it?” I reassured her that the van was far behind us, but
we needed to keep our current pace. I told her, that we only had 3 more miles.
Shontell picked her stride to match mine and we walked and I kept talking to
encourage her.
24-25
Shontell was still with me, people cheered, kids gave me
wild flowers.
25.5-26.2
I left Shontell. I activated the run I had stored to run
across the finish line. I finished. 6:56:08. I never worried about my time; not
because I felt confident that I would beat the cutoff, I simply did not care.
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| Kiss the baybee! |
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| The Jacket! |
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| The Bib. The Shirt. The Medal |
So, there it is, my #EpicShit #OneAndDone #26.2 #RnRNOLA
