Marathon Madness Recap

I apologize for the late post. It's been a crazy few weeks. First, we were in Boston and then the next weekend, Eric went to Paris for the week, so I was flying solo at home. Actually, the week was really easy because Piper and Fletch are so good. They went to sleep easily every night he was gone and slept late every morning. But, it was tiring, not just for me, but also for Eric who was working hard while away. Anyway, this post is to recap the marathon, so Piper and Fletch will know later in life that at one time, their mom and dad were runners who did cool (crazy) stuff like marathons.

Eric arrived home the Friday before the race. We've been training all summer and were glad the big weekend was finally here. Marathon weekend started with rain, sleet, and snow on Saturday. It seems like every year, the weather is bad the day before the race. Despite the conditions, we ventured out early with the babies to get to the Expo and pick up our race numbers.

After browsing the Expo, we went home for naps and relaxing. Thankfully, the weather here wasn't as bad as in the rest of the Northeast, where many friends and family were without power for days on end.

On Sunday, we woke up early and dropped the babies off with Eric's mom around 5:30am. Eric and I then boarded the Metro for the race. Here I am panicking that we were going to be late, so I placed a last minute call to our running partner, just in case. Of course, we weren't late at all.

Arriving at the Pentagon and making the loooonnnggg walk to the Runners' Village was very cold (I swear, the MCM ends up being at least 27.2 miles with all the walking at the beginning and end). The temperature outside was in the low 30s—definitely the coldest marathon start I've ever done. We met up with our running partner (Lillian) and made our way to the corral to use the body heat of all the runners to keep warm.

After about a 30-minute wait, the race began! By the time the gun went off, the air was still very cool, but the sun was warming things up. The first 10 miles through Arlington and into Georgetown went by fairly fast. We saw friends on the course and maintained our slow pace. After Georgetown, we headed down to the Kennedy Center and then onto Hain's Point. That's where I lost it. We got separated from our small group, and I just didn't want to be out there anymore. I was simply having a bad day.

Hain's Point is always hell, no matter where they try to sneak it into the race, but this year it felt particularly bad for me. By the time we crossed under the 14^th Street Bridge to get off HP, I was beat and nearly in tears. I told Eric to go ahead without me, and I seriously considered stepping off the course. But, I kept going and about 0.50 miles later, I ran into the husband of a friend on the sidelines who had Gatorade and water. Dan replenished my supply (thank you so much!), and I started to get some energy back.

A few minutes later, around mile 14, I saw a runner wearing a shirt that said, "I had twins last year; I'm running a marathon this year; I can do anything." I caught up to her and chatted for a second, while we came around by the Lincoln Memorial. That conversation gave me the energy I needed, and I started feeling great again. Plus, we were now running along the Mall—my home turf. I put everything I had into it, and around mile 19, I caught back up with Eric. It was so wonderful to see him again.

The next few miles were on the 14^th Street Bridge, which is always hard. It's a bit of a death march across the bridge, and most people near me were walking. I kept to my intervals and ran much of it. Then, it was onto Crystal City around mile 22. Once you get there, you know you're going to finish. I was getting tired, but the end was in sight. I pushed through the next few miles, and finally rounded the corner and ran up the hill near the Iwo Jima Memorial and crossed the finish line. It was so great to be done.

My overall race time was much slower than I'd like it to be, but given that we didn't train this year like normal, that's ok. For the first few days after the race, I was saying that that was my last marathon but now I can feel the bug to do another one again. We'll see.

Of course, throughout the race, the one thing that kept me going was the idea of seeing Piper and Fletch when we got done. Nothing felt better than getting home to them and letting them play with our medals.