Marine Corps Marathon - Part 3 - The FINISH!!

Part 3 .... Yes, we FINISHED!!!.......

Miles 21-25: Crystal City.....pain in the quad.....OMG I have to walk again.....But the spectators were blasting the music and dancing and that kept my mind off it for the most part!! Really bad when you look at your watch and go "we can still beat 5 hours if we can do 2 more miles in 30 minutes" LOL

Miles 26-26.2 (.5 per Garmin): Very hard, uphill to Iwo, spectator ran into the runners to video his friend. Hope he got it on tape us yelling at him to "move out of the way". Then we heard our RMR ladies cheering for us, we held hands and finished together. As I almost decked the guy next to me for trying to block me LOL

After crossing that finish line, Crystal and I gave each other a huge hug and that's when the tears started.  Walking up to get our medals, the road was lined with Marines giving high fives and congratulating the runners.  It was awesome, just awesome!!!    And we BEAT Hurricane Sandy!!  Thank goodness!!

Then we headed into the area where the Marines were presenting the medals :)  No words...lots of emotion!!  WE DID IT!!

Saluted by a Marine presenting my medal.  Seriously in awe of these guys.  They're awesome!!

Unfortunately, after we got our medals, it went downhill from there.  We waited a bit to get our Finisher Photo done, but it gave us time to touch base with our friends and families!  I reported in to my husband that we were alive and well, and I got a big congratulations call from him and Michael.

FINISHER!!!

Now to wait to get all the photos from along the course :)

We headed to the Finish Area to get our drop bags and meet up with our friends.  It seemed like MILES to get there!  Didn't we do enough already ??   We found "Miles" along the way for a picture since we missed him at the Expo!!  

Me, Miles, and Crystal

Looking good for 26.2 in our recovery jackets.  These were actually toasty warm!

Run Mama Run ladies!! 

We finally got our stuff, found our friends, and decided to head on home.   OMG, the line to get into the Metro and/or shuttle buses were insane!!  I mean, it would have been over an hour to get IN to the Metro station.  So we walked (another MILE) to the next stop UPHILL to the next Station.  Best move though.  We got right on the train and headed home!  Walked back to the hotel, grabbed a Starbucks for the road, and got the car from the Valet!  Traffic was easy out of DC, so we were home quickly!! 

What an adventure this was.  I was lucky to have awesome friends along the way to take this on with!

Will I ever do another marathon.....???  Right now, I can't say "never" because the Marine Corps Marathon was so wonderful!  But I am really looking forward to going back to running Half Marathons and having some down time!

OOOOORAH!!!

Marine Corps Marathon - Part 2 - On Course

Part 2 .... Now we're running....

So now we're off and running.  The first few miles really went fast.  There were so many people around and the course was beautiful.  Unfortunately my legs were really, really feeling the "burn" early on!  No running the week before let all that lactic acid build up. 


Right after the start!

Miles 2-4:  Here is where my muscles were burning, but the scenery was beautiful!  This is also where I got behind the Semper Fi Fund runner that had a prostetic leg.  I told myself right then to shut up about any pain I had!!  He was amazing!!   There was also a group of Marines marching the marathon with HUGE backpacks!  So in awe of them!



Headed into mile 3 !

Miles 6-8:  We were hitting the hilliest section of the course here, but we had a group come up behind us singing a Ke$ha song over and over.  "Your love, your love, your love, is my drug"  LOL  It was entertaining.  Then some girls in front of us screamed and jumped.  Well, if you know my history of running with Crystal, it means something scary in the road LOL   Well, it was a dead racoon we had to dodge!

Miles 9-10:  Headed through a heavily spectator lined area.  Lots of cowbell, cheering, and signs!!  At this point, I saw "Rock It Like This Hurricane".  Set the Scorpions song into my head for a good while!  LOL

Miles 11-15:  We got behind this group of runners, which was timely because around mile 12, my feet started to hurt.  "Embrace the Suck"   LOL   Running this section of the course was cool because there were signs on the side everywhere!  So we did a lot of reading and running.   I almost lost Crystal through one of the water stops, but luckily didn't!  



We followed "Embrace the Suck" around miles 12-15 through Hains Point.

Miles 16-18:  This section was around the Mall in DC.  Great sites to see, lots of spectators, etc!  Definitely was a great section to run.  We ended up running with the color guard flags for awhile too.  And we kept saying "only a couple more miles to our "party""!!



Somewhere between Mile 15-18.

Miles 19-20:  As much as we were getting tired, we knew we had an awesome support group waiting for us at Mile 20.  Our #1 Cheerleader, Tonya, was there with the Mile 20 group!  Crystal almost took her down with a huge hug when she saw her.  I did the same LOL   Then a quick picture, grabbed some snacks, and that was the BEST ice cold water bottle ever!!   This stop gave us the energy we needed to make it to "Beat the Bridge"!!

Our #1 Cheerleader at Mile 20

Mile 20 !!

Stay tuned for our finish......Part 3 coming up!!

Marine Corps Marathon 2012 - Part 1 - The Start

I really don't even know where to start with Marine Corps Weekend!  All the emotions, the highs, the lows, the friends, the Marines, the spectators, the Mile 20 group, etc.!  So I'm going to do this post in sections.  This will be Part 1.......

We were monitoring the weather constantly.  Hurricane Sandy was looking to make this a very difficult race, but what's a little rain and wind, right ??  :/ 

The morning of the MCM started with a 4:15am wake-up call at the hotel.  Although, it didn't matter, I saw the clock almost every hour with race anxiety/excitement!!  Grabbed some breakfast, then got dressed and ready.  My friends and I headed down and put the bags in the car (that valet took FOREVER)!!  Once we finally had that dealt with, we headed to the Metro!  At least that was uneventful, except for seeing a prostitute broker a deal, and then have a black cat cross our paths LOL!!  Washington D.C. at 5:30am !!

Our view walking to Runners Village!

Met up with a lot of other MCM runners along the Metro and headed to the Runners Village at the start.  Probably about a mile walk to get there.  Found the UPS bag drop, and we were all set!!  We made it there by 6:30 to meet up with the awesome RFRC group.  The RFRC group was created to support first-time Marathoners, and I was so happy to have found them during my months of training! We met, we huddled, we prayed, and we cheered!!   OOOOORAH!!!  


UPS Bag Drop!

RFRC Huddle!

RFRC!

Off to the Start line now!  Had to head up that way to use our special "VIP Potty" priviledges.  This was a perk to spending too much money at the Brooks store during the Expo.  I had to have my MCM Finisher jackets, so my credit card melted that day ;)   These were "porta potties on trucks", but they had running water and flushed!  And I can't forget the VIP Potty Butler handing out mints!!   So this was a much better potty experience for race !  Definitely worth it! 

VIP Potty !

VIP Potty Butler - this guy was great!

Now we're moving to the START line!

I had to stop and get a picture with the Marines!!

We headed into our corral.  We chose the 4:30 projected finish, just hoping we'd get settled into a nice pace right from the start (eventhough our goal was to #1 - FINISH, #2 - Rock it under 5 hours)!  

Almost ready to go!!

 

Once the National Anthem was played and the Osprey military choppers flew over, I really got a big punch of nerves in the gut!  I had to completely just take a deep breath and tell myself "you've trained for this, you've got it"!!  Not sure I believed myself though LOL

The race began with the National Anthem, and then two Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 22 MV-22B Ospreys flying from the Pentagon over the starting line!!

They fired the Howitzer and we were off!!   It took us 10 minutes to get to the actual start line from our corral !!

And we're OFF................

 Stay tuned for Part 2 !!

Cupcake Classic 5K (RunWithJess.com)

Who doesn't love a cupcake race ???   I don't seem to pass them up!!  We have a local one in town each Spring and then this one came from from a Blogger I follow (www.runwithjess.com).

So one of the lovely Run Mama Run ladies organized a date, time, and delivery of cupcakes for us!  Yes, she's quite awesome!

We met up Sunday morning after some of us already put in long runs, and then enjoyed a 5K around our local park course that is frequently used in our local races!!   The cupcakes were great, the company even better!  Always a nice way to spend time with my favorite ladies!!

Thanks to Jess for this virtual reason to eat cupcakes!!  And I love my bling :)

Run Mama Run ladies!

Georgetown Cupcakes

Alllllll mine LOL

MCM Taper Craziness! 14 days to go!!!

Well, it's official. The taper crazies are a real thing!! I find myself counting down the days, questioning my readiness, and frequenting MCM blogs, videos, and web pages. I'm in obsessed mode. Planning out logistics and outfits, while juggling Daniel starting a new school, his birthday party, baseball practices, games, and end-of-year party, and swim classes. Oh yeah, and going back to work full-time.

I'm feeling crazy!! I feel like I need to run more miles, but it's taper time. Feeling sluggish in my runs now, eating horribly, and just sleepy :)  And Daniel is coughing and trying to share with me!!  Please don't buddy, love, your Mommy!!!

Just happy for my running groups for great support, clarity, sanity, and great laughs!!  Fun to know the craziness is shared by many moving into the last 14 days pre-race!!

What I do know:

1) I have the best running/training friend ever, who has NEVER missed a training/long run.
2) We've run 20 miles TWICE!  We've got this!
3)  Race day energy will be awesome!
4)  Lot of friends are coming to support us!

So 2 more weeks......and then I'll post this picture as my FB timeline picture :)  I know most ladies won't mind ;)