I have to admit, I have mixed emotions about my first marathon.\u00a0 I think a big part of that has to do with post-marathon blues.\u00a0 There’s such a buildup to the race.\u00a0 Training started months ago.\u00a0 I have been working and working for this event.\u00a0 And then it was over.\u00a0 And I have this fabulous medal, but there’s always that letdown (or so I have been told).\u00a0 It’s really the first time that I’ve done a race where I didn’t already know when my next one would be.\u00a0 I have no idea when I will run a marathon again.<\/p>\n
But I do think there will be a next time.\u00a0 Just not in this sort of weather.<\/p>\n
Sadly, this was a rough race for a lot of people.\u00a0 Of the 27,000 runners who started, 4500 dropped out before the finish.\u00a0 Some of this was likely due to undertraining, and I definitely have friends who were coming off of injuries and knew that finishing was unlikely, but they wanted to give it a shot.\u00a0 Mad props to Patrick, who was possibly the happiest person swept at the 30K mark.\u00a0 He even made himself his own medal representing the distance he covered.\u00a0 You have to do what is right for your body.<\/p>\n
(Along those lines, I heard a lot of people talking about their training for Goofy and it was clear they had no idea what it takes to train for a race like that.\u00a0 13.1 followed by 26.2 is nothing to be flippant about.)<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, we saw a lot of people in the med tents with heat-related issues, including full blown cases of heat stroke.\u00a0 Not good.\u00a0 Rumor has it that two people died during the race as well, though that may just be rumor.\u00a0 Either way, with a high of 85 degrees and 80% humidity, it was definitely a race to listen to your body.<\/p>\n
We ended up walking quite a bit because of my sister’s foot injury, but I don’t think that’s such a bad thing.\u00a0 Maybe we could have gone faster, but we finished without any real suffering due to the heat, and in a race like that, finishing standing and feeling good is definitely key.<\/p>\n
So while my time may not have been what I wanted, I finished healthy.\u00a0 My only injuries are a slight sunburn (though I reapplied sunscreen during the race) and a blister on my little toe (even with Injiji socks).\u00a0 And now I have a solid marathon time to beat.\u00a0 I’m not a fast runner, but my training indicated that I could have a solid 6:30 marathon.\u00a0 For the next one, however far away it may be, if I train like I did – or better! – I think I can definitely shave 30 minutes or more off my time.\u00a0 And that would feel great.<\/p>\n
But for now, I’m going to enjoy relaxing and letting my body heal.\u00a0 And showing off my medal.\u00a0 This thing is awesome.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I have to admit, I have mixed emotions about my first marathon.\u00a0 I think a big part of that has to do with post-marathon blues.\u00a0 There’s such a buildup to the race.\u00a0 Training started months ago.\u00a0 I have been working and working for this event.\u00a0 And then it was over.\u00a0 And I have this fabulous […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[64,42],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n