Richmond marathon

I'm waiting for pictures from my Mom to post, but had to at least write the details before they are gone from my brain.

I was so lucky that my Mom flew in to drive down with me to Richmond with the kids. We picked her up in Buffalo last Thursday. Then we raced home to celebrate Wayne's birthday before he had to leave for work at 6:30 p.m. The day was crazy and I, of course, had not packed anything yet for our trip that we were leaving for early the next day. As soon as the kids went to sleep I packed the goods. We had snacks, movies, and games galore. Thank goodness. The trip down was eventful.

We left just after Wayne came home from work Friday morning. After making a quick bagel stop at Panera Bread we were on the road. Everything was fine until we hit D.C. traffic at 4:00 p.m. I was actually hoping to be in Richmond by 5:30, but we literally crawled for two and half hours. Our plans quickly changed. The expo was only open until 9:00 p.m. and there was no race day pickup. When we were still in D.C. at 6:00 I was getting worried. We hadn't had any dinner and the kids were getting a little antsy. My Mom called my Dad and put the address of the expo into the GPS. We finally arrived at 7:30, again with no dinner. By the time we were done there it was 8:15 and we struggled to find the hotel. It was frusterating. After finally getting there, putting on pajama's and setting up Lexi's pack and play I was beat. We had only eaten snacks in the car, but we were all exhausted and I decided that I needed sleep more than food at that point.

I had a wake up call at 5:45 on Saturday morning. Of course the boys woke up as well and I took them downstairs with me to get some breakfast. I headed out the door to the start line at 7:30 and started the marathon at 8:00.

My goal was to break four hours. I wasn't sure if it would happen since I had a pretty lengthy injury this training season. The first 15 miles were smooth sailing. I ran 8 - 8:10 minute miles. I started to get tired and slowed down a bit, but picked up speed again a few miles later. At mile 18 it was a complete mental game to finish. I pictured running with my girlfriends a familiar 8 mile route close to home. My legs were screaming the last three miles, but somehow I was able to keep my miles at about 8:30. I was really thinking that I might be able to qualify for the Boston marathon at that point. I hit mile 26 and took off in a full sprint. I kept looking at my watch thinking, "Don't hit 3:41, don't hit 3:41", but it happened. I missed qualifying by about 30 seconds. I won't lie. I'm disappointed, but thrilled at the same time. My best marathon time before this was 4:29. The sad thing is that my garmin shows that I ran 26.41 miles at an average pace of 8:23, which is qualifying time for Boston. Oh well. Maybe next time.

I thought that maybe my "official" time would possibly by 3:40. I checked online and nothing pulled up. For some reason my chip didn't register throughout the race. I contacted the race and they looked into it. All they have said so far is that the photo's show me crossing the finish line at 3:42:48. I'm not sure how they will determine my official time since I started a minute or two back from the front. I'm still waiting to hear.

I couldn't find my Mom and the kids. Thankfully I had a hotel key with me and awkwardly walked to the room. I called Mom on her cell and told her that I was in the room. She said, "You told me that you wouldn't cross before four hours! We're here with clappers and a poster!" They came up a few minutes later and we chilled the rest of the afternoon watching Up and going swimming.

Sunday morning I drove Mom to Baltimore airport. Trevor said, "I'm sad that Grandma is leaving." He has said many times since how much he wants to move to Utah. I'm glad that we'll be there for Christmas. It made it much easier to say goodbye. Lexi asked, "Where Grandma go?" about 10 times the first few minutes we were driving away from the airport. I'm thankful for those moments with my Mom. It was so good to see her walking. The last time I saw her was when I left Utah after her accident. It was not a pretty sight and I'm thankful that it seems like a nightmare at this point.

One of my closest friends, Jessica, let us crash at her house Sunday evening. She's one of my childhood friends, although we really got to know each other well in college and after we were married. I love that girl! We had a great time and the kids had an absolute ball together.

We headed home Monday morning. The drive was about five hours total. I took the kids to Reptileland just outside of Williamsport, which was about the halfway mark. Oh boy, they LOVED it. It is small, but the kids petted boa constrictors and alligators. They saw tons of snakes, turtles, crocodiles, and tortoises. It was perfect and pretty much empty so they could run around to their hearts content.

I'm not quite ready to say when the next marathon will be. It's a bit too fresh. It's funny, during the race quite a few of the ladies had said that they told their husbands previously to NOT let them ever sign up for one again. It really is almost addicting, but at least it's a good addiction, right?