The MARATHON!!!

My marathon experience was SO amazing!!!  Aaaahhhh I just loved it so much! A week before my race Ty's mom sent me a package to wish me good luck on the race.  She is sooo thoughtful!  I started crying when I opened it.  Two days before the race a pizza hut delivery guy showed up at my door.  I kindly told him I didn't order a pizza and he must have the wrong house but he said I'd been gifted a pizza and some pasta from my mom and dad to say good luck!  Delicious carbo loading!  And pizza hut is my fav!  It felt so great to be supported from afar.

The few days before the race I was so nervous and excited!  Here I am picking up my number!

Oh man, this is really happening!

Cute little Oaks

Beautiful Saylor

The place where I picked up my shirt and my number had a stage set up and music playing and so obviously for Saylor that means a dance party!

Oaks dancing skills are pretty good too

Max was also excited!

Sometimes we wonder how we got such crazy girls...and then we remember who their mom is.

After picking up our packets we went to Olive Garden to make sure we were nice and full of carbs.  It was delicious!  

We went back to our hotel and let the girls swim for a while.  We shared a room with Lisa and Marshall so we put the kids to bed and sat in the hall and played ticket to ride until they fell asleep.  The night didn't go too well.  Saylor woke up about 1am and came and got in bed with us and pretty much was awake and talking to Ty all night.  Oakley realized her pack and play was right next to our bed and kept popping up yelling Hi Mom!  Hi Dad! We were planning on waking up at 5:30am but for some reason our hotel alarm clock went off at 4:30am, woke up everyone including the kids so no one went to sleep after that.  Bummer.  I woke up pretty much every hour anyway though because I was nervous!  Poor Ty had to stay and watch all the exhausted kids.  

Before leaving the hotel, these are the people I wrote on my arm to run miles for:

(I started at mile 8)

8. Lisa

9. Sarah

10. Travis

11. Shoni & Sean

12. Stig & Lacey

13. Tallon

14. Autumn

15. Josh & Ashley

16. Beau

17. Zach

18. Kirstie & Kyser

19. Dave

20 Delynn

21. Dad

22. Mom

23. Oakley 

24. Saylor

25. Tyler

26. Myself

We left for the race about 6:30am.  The energy before the race started was awesome.  We stood in a huge crowd of people by the starting line and me, Morgan, Allie, Lisa and Lacey decided to huddle together and have a prayer before the race started.  Morgan said a beautiful prayer and by the end most of us were in tears. This race meant so much to us.  We had been training for 18 weeks.  We had gotten up every single Saturday, usually at 5am, to run insane amounts of miles in below freezing, bitter cold temperatures.  Most Saturdays I would get home and Ty would immediately leave to go study, some nights until midnight.  I didn't get to lay on the couch all day or have someone pamper me.  I would run 12, or 16 or 18 miles and then have to come home and be a mom all day when I was completely exhausted.  We had sacrificed SO much to get to this point. 

They had a moment of silence for those affected in the Boston Marathon shooting.  They released a balloon for each person who had died.  I was in tears again.  Then someone sang the national anthem, again, the tears were flowing.  We hadn't even started running yet!   Then the gun shot and we were off!

It was fun to run the first 3 miles with Lacey (she was doing the half) At mile 3 the marathoners turned left and the half marathoners turned right.  I couldn't believe that I was actually turning left!  AAAhhh!!  Just one year ago I was there running my first ever half.  It felt pretty crazy that I was going to do double that day!  The first ten miles really flew by! We stuck with the 4:30 pacers and they were two super awesome guys that were fun to talk to.  They made fun of us for being loud and kind of out of control (I would yell and freak out every time we hit a mile marker) After the first ten I told Allie and Morgan that the race was going too fast and I wanted time to slow down so I could savor the moment!  You only run your 1st marathon once!

Around mile 8 or 9 we already had to go to the bathroom so we all stopped and went. (Maybe TMI) It was probably a 5 min. stop. Soon after that Morgan's husband, kids and dad surprised us! It was so fun to have fans and see people we knew!  Morgan started crying which is a pretty big deal (she never cries!) It felt so great to be running in new places with new sites to see.  We have ran the streets of Kirksville hundreds of times it feels like.  Around mile 15 we started going up a trail where we would go out and back.  Morgan's family surprised us again!  So fun!  It is a little bit hard to go on a trail and see people already coming back that are a whole hour in front of you.  But mostly I loved it actually.  Every person that ran past we would cheer for and they would cheer for us.  It was like a big family.  Everyone in the race was so supportive of each other, I just wanted to hug every single person! 

This is where the aid stations got super awesome!! Not only was there water and gatorade...they had vaseline on popsicle sticks so you could grab one and put it on your lips as you ran, best thing ever!!!  We were all going on and on about how much we loved the vaseline haha.  They also had gummy bears, pretzels, oranges, jolly ranchers...it was awesome.  At about 18 1/2 miles we turned around and started heading back on the trail.  This is about when we started to get behind the 4:30 pacers.  We were dragging a little.  We walked through all the water stations but at the end of the water station it was SO hard to start running again.  Morgan's knee really started hurting her around mile 20 so we stopped to walk with her a few times.  Allie and I felt so horrible but we finally ended up leaving Morgan at that point because she was really hurting and kind of hitting a wall.  She told us to go on because she felt bad but we had always talked about staying together so it was really hard.  We were excited when we hit mile 20 because we were headed into the unknown after that and running more than we ever had before. Mile 22 we got off of the trail and we knew we were getting close!  We saw Morgan's family one more time and we were glad Morgan would be getting some support to keep going with out us.  

My body was really hurting now.  Like every muscle in my body ached.  My body was screaming at me to stop running but I knew I only had a few more miles to go.  As much as my body was hurting, I actually felt a lot better than I thought I would.  I was imaging the last six miles I would be crying with pain or maybe that I wouldn't be able to go on...I just didn't know what to expect.  Running a marathon was always something I wanted to do so I could say that I did it but I always expected running 4 1/2 hours would be miserable.  Yes, I hurt, but I was still having a lot of fun!  The people cheering on the side totally pumped me up!  A few of them commented on how I was smiling so much and I shouldn't be that happy after running over 20 miles.  There were awesome people along the whole trail with hilarious signs and people clapping and cheering to keep our spirits up. I knew my family was at the end and I just kept imaging how amazing it was going to feel to cross that finish line and say that I had ran a marathon!  

We all dedicated miles to people as we were running and we would talk about them every mile.  The last few were super emotional because we ran those for our kids and husbands.  Allie and I cried several times together during those miles but thinking about our families kept us going strong! Allie somehow had SO much energy those last few miles (she says it was the gu!) She picked up her speed and even though my body was saying no, I kept with her! We were booking it!  I had miscalculated my miles because I was thinking when we hit the 26 sign we'd still have one more mile...So at mile 25 when I first thought we had 2 miles left I realized it was our last mile!!!  I was SO happy!  When we hit 26 that last .2 felt FOREVER!  But we could see the crowd and the finish line so I started sprinting!!

The Home Stretch!

I really LOVE this picture Lisa took of me.  This is when they were calling out my name but my favorite part about it is the 4:30 pacers that are looking over at me like, how the heck did she catch up with us? (They came up to me after and told me that is what they were thinking  haha)

Finishing at 4:29!!!! (Beat my goal of 4:30!)

It felt so good to kiss and hug my girls!!!

Saylor thought my medal was sooo cool!!  It is pretty awesome and it's HUGE!

I felt SO amazing!!!  They were blaring music at the finish line and I was totally dancing and loving it! (It hurt a little to dance but I was just SO happy!)  I immediately told Ty I would love to run another marathon!

Morgan came in a little bit after us.  I was so proud of her for finishing on her own.  I have grown to love these girls SO much!!!!  There is no way I ever could have done it with out them!!

Getting my finisher shirt!

I got some food, a massage and then we made the long walk back to our car (quite painful)  I sat in the hot tub and pool for a little when I got back to the hotel and that felt heavenly!  We took our families and we all ate at cheesecake factory which we had been dreaming about for a very long time!  Just walking was painful but Ty said he was impressed with how well I was getting around.  We made the long 3 hour drive home and I immediately crawled into bed!  I was pretty sore the first few days after. Monday at exercise group all the girls that ran sat in the hot tub and we ate donuts!!!  It was so delicious. The whole thing was a once in a lifetime experience and I will never forget it.  I have wanted to run a marathon my whole life and now I can check it off the list. I'm sooo thankful for a healthy body that allows me to do the things that I love.  I'm so thankful for my family for supporting me.  It really is a sacrifice for your whole family.  Ty watched the girls for me and then they all had to deal with a tired, sometimes grumpy momma on the days of my long runs.  I really am sad that it is over.  The first Saturday not running felt kind of empty.  It always felt so accomplishing and I loved the time spent chatting for hours with Allie and Morgan every Saturday.  I will miss that.  So what is the next big thing for me now?....I'm thinking maybe a triathlon!