Wow! Has it really been an entire week since I ran my marathon??? I have definitely been remiss in my duty by not giving an update until now. Please forgive me. I'm still getting used to this blogging thing, and as any of you moms out there know, no matter how much fun blogging is, family takes first priority.
Just to recap, as I trained for this first marathon, I went into self-sabotage mode for a good 6 weeks or more, eating terribly and running very infrequently right up until a month before the race. At that point I kind of freaked out and kicked myself in the buns to get moving. For that last month, my runs and diet improved tremendously, and even though I knew one month of doing the right things wouldn't completely make up for an entire summer of doing the wrong things, I was still hopeful that I would get a decent time in the marathon. And admittedly, I still had dreams of qualifying for Boston floating around in the back of my head.
Well, perhaps needless to say, I did not qualify for Boston in this, my first marathon ever. But I still feel so proud of myself for finishing the race! Yes, I did finish, and I was crying as I stumbled across the finish line 5 hours and 15 minutes after the gun went off. I hurt soooo much, and I felt soooo proud that I had made it even though at times it was all I could do to keep moving. I am so proud of myself for pushing myself back into a run so many times in those last few miles when no part of me had any interest in running anymore. And I am so grateful and happy that, even though I started having stomach upset within the first few minutes of the race that then lasted through the ENTIRE run (I realized later that I had caught the stomach flu bug that had my 3-year-old throwing up 2 nights before the race), I still ran, and I still finished! So while I am not proud of the time I got on my first marathon--in fact, I'm really quite embarrassed about it--I am proud of myself for doing it and finishing it despite the setbacks caused by the lack of training and the stomach flu. As I look back on the whole experience, I feel very positive about the entire thing and very excited to do my next marathon.
My post-race recovery was extremely quick thanks mostly to Danny Dreyer and his Chi Running method. If you've never heard of Chi Running, you can find out more about it at http://www.chirunning.com/. I have been actively practicing Chi Running for about a year and a half now, and I'm completely sold on it. While I was so stiff immediately after finishing the race that I could only hobble, I recovered really quickly and had very little soreness in the days following the race. It was truly a miracle! I was expecting to hardly be able to move by Sunday or Monday, but instead I felt great! I did have some sore leg muscles, but they were mild and really only noticeable when I tried to walk down any stairs. That, my friends, is why I am so excited to become a certified Chi Running instructor (more info about that later)!
Finally, I would be extremely ungrateful if I did not take a few lines to thank my friend Kris for supporting me through this entire experience. Being the awesome friend that she is, she agreed to leave her family and drive up to the race city with me, where we tried not to stay up too late talking and giggling like school girls at a slumber party. She then got up at 4:00 am to help me get ready to go. And if that weren't enough, she drove her car up and, after running a few miles with some other friends of hers who were also doing the marathon, she met me at mile 18 and ran those last 8 miles with me, encouraging me and helping me to keep going at times when I thought I was going to die. Admittedly, I did threaten her life a few times during those last miles because she was just too dang cheerful! But in all honesty I am so grateful for her support and her friendship. I never could have done it without her and all of the other friends and family who were sending love and prayers my way that day.
I mentioned in an earlier post that I was going to see how much improving my diet for the last month helped, and I have to say that if I had not changed my diet, I would not have been able to finish the race. I believe it was my whole foods way of eating that allowed me to keep going and fight off the flu bug enough to keep from throwing up or cramping up or collapsing in the middle of the race. My unsettled stomach caused me to not be able to consume more than a small fraction of the nutrition I brought with me on the run, but I still had enough energy to make it through 5+ hours of running! Healthy eating: I'm a big fan!
