Yaaaaaay! What exhilaration! What accomplishment! The 3rd Annual Eugene Marathon is over!
The goal: to walk a half marathon (13.1 miles)
Target completion time: 4.5 hours
Accomplishment: Completed a half marathon in 3.5 hours!!!!!!!
Awards:
- The medal (not a chocolate medal as I wished; and everyone got one);
- A quarter-sized diameter of a blister on bottom of right foot;
- A dead nail on one of the little toes of same right foot.
Post Race Notes
That’s my walking partner’s legs on the left and mine on the right. Check out how my right foot is stepping funny. That’s because the blister was intensely painful, like a blister on top of a blister.
I started limping at mile 4. The rain was steady at the start of the race and my socks and shoes were soaked. Decided not to change socks knowing if I did, the blister which I could feel had already adhered to the sock will rip open. Miserably, I limped till the end.
My walking partner got pulled along with the runners and had to run along with them. She finished 20 minutes ahead of me.
All along the course, I was tempted to check my time but held off till the end. The best and sweetest surprise was at the finish line when I could hardly believe my eyes. I shaved AN HOUR from my goal time. If only I could jump up and down at the finish line! But pain and fatigue prevented me from doing anything crazy like jumping or bending or anything. But sweet success, I did it!
And you’d think that after the race you are soooo hungry you could eat a horse or a cow, all I just wanted to do was NOT TO PUKE. So I didn’t partake on the free pancakes. A banana, 2 bags of chips (for the salt intake), 3 bites of turkey subway sandwich were all I could stomach. Then it was off to a long, deep, relaxing massage. I actually napped till it was over.
We stayed till the end of the race. Although I forgot to take a photo at the start of the race (how could I when the area was jam-packed with people), I made sure to take a photo of the sixth-hour time.
This week is a no-training week, a goof-off week. Then, on to a more rigorous training for the Portland Full Marathon (26.2 miles of hills and bridges) in October. My goal is to finish it at 6.5 to 7.5 hours considering the uphill battles. Mind you, during the race yesterday, I was actually asking/telling myself, “why, why, why am I here when this race is such a painful ordeal; why, why, why, oh why? I’ll never do this again!” After a day (today) of rest, I’m hooked. This is a new addiction! I can’t wait for the next training.
But before Portland Marathon, there’s the Butte-to-Butte 4.5 mile fitness walk. Butte-to-Butte has no 10k walking race, unfortunately. Butte-to-Butte’s 10k run is brutal as the history indicates, with almost a vertical climb at the beginning of the race.
I might enter 1 or 2 more half marathons somewhere. We will see. It’s more like my knees will tell me.
Overall, I’m really, really glad I didn’t back out of this crazy idea to enter a marathon.
