Sunday, March 6, 2016

Game on! Little Rock Marathon.

Today was the day, the Little Rock Marathon. We had perfect weather projected and I was anxious to get going. 

The race kicked off at 7 and we were off. We saw a lot of great sites on the run that I had to stop and get a picture. 
We ran by the Governor's mansion, Little Rock Central High school and the Capitol! 


I got really nervous today because around mile 5.5 my knee started tweaking and hurting. I knew 21 more miles was going to be pushing it. It continued to hurt on and off and we forged on. Then around 12.25, Sarah, our running partner, her calf seized up and began causing tremendous pain. We ended up splitting apart from around mile 14 on and David and I kept pushing through. That was a hard decision David and I had to make to leave our training partner behind but on race day the unspoken rule came into play. We had to run our best and unfortunately we couldn't all stay together. 

Finally, we got to the last 6.2 and those had to be the hardest miles of my life. My legs were screaming at me to quit and I wanted to MANY times. I had tears in my eyes many times thinking I can't finish this but then I would get a small burst of energy and run for as long as my knee could handle it. Thankfully, my partner was cool with my walk/run plan to finish the race. We were going to walk most of the last mile when we hear "5.30 pace group coming up behind you." Neither David or I wanted them to beat us so we mustered some energy and pulled ahead of them. We walked again and then once we it 26.2 we ran into the finish.  We made it in 5.26! Crossing that finish line was emotional and I teared up again because of the pain and the fact I had completed 26 miles!  I'm so glad I did it but it was the hardest thing for sure. One more thing checked off the bucket list. 😊






No comments: