I DID IT@@@@@@@
I was really worried at the beginning because there were so many people I didn't even cross the starting line until 4 minutes after the gun, so by the time I got to my first mile it said 19 minutes on the clock. So I had lot of time to make up, then was worried about extra time spent on bathroom breaks, etc, and how much longer the miles would take at the end. But, things actually went really well. I had one sub 14 mile, and quite a few low and mid 14s. I hooked up with a 62 year old lady named Lynn who had her arm in a sling from a rotator cuff injury. She has done 10 marathons, and this was her 5th this year. We had the same pace, so walked together until I had to use the bathroom, then I spent the next 8 miles catching up with her again. She wasn't feeling real great during the second half of the race, so I definitely wasn't going as fast as I could, but it really helped me to have her to walk with, because it took my mind off the pain. She kept saying I could leave her if I wanted to, but by about mile 18 I was in enough pain that I didn't think I would be able to go faster anyway. I started developing a blister right before mile 22, and luckily there was a medical tent, so I stopped and got it wrapped, and Lynn waited for me. We had enough of a buffer that with 3 and some miles left we had a whole hour to finish. So that made us feel like it was ok to slow down a bit, plus I had to go slower anyway because of my blister. But then when we were coming in at the end, she got a call from her husband and he said, "I can see you, and you have 9 minutes left on the clock, you better put the afterburners on." So I looked at my watch and was like, "oh crap, he's right." Idk how that happened! lol. So we managed to finish with 2 minutes left on the official clock. The time on my watch said 6:54:09. Idk what time it will say on my certificate, because I started my watch a bit late through the start.
16-Sep-2012 12:48:54
