The story of the Air Force marathon actually starts after giving birth to Theodore last October. I have to do something after each kid to prove that I am still a young whipper snapper. After Marie, I wanted to get the same AF PT standards that I previously had. After Claire, we did the Mt. Whitney in a day climb. After Theodore, I decided it would be a good time to run a marathon. It is something that has been on my bucket list, so I figured that I would get it out of the way. I enlisted the support of Teddy and his brothers to run the race also. We signed everyone up January 1st, the first day registration opened!
I began training about a month after Theodore was born. It is always depressing when you go running after having a kid and it is pathetically hard to even run around the block. I got some winter running clothes and trained through the winter to get into good enough shape to START the 30 week marathon training program from Hal Higdon.
The winter training went great, but when I started the training program and had to increase the mileage then I ran into trouble. My bum muscle would cramp up and force me to stretch every mile if I was going over 3 miles. I found out it originated from something that happened when Theodore was born. The doctor put me on physical therapy and I did that through the remainder of my training. It helped, but was frustrating being held back by an injury when I wanted to run faster. I trained having to stretch every couple miles for awhile, but eventually it didn't make me stop to stretch. I can't say that it completely went away, but at least I wasn't adding on at least a minute to every mile to stretch. The last month of training was spent doing just a couple long runs and trying to prevent further injury. My hips had been giving me some problems as well... I blame that on having 3 kids in 3 years.
My overall time was 4:36 which I was proud of. I said that I would be happy with anything sub 5 hours, but I am a little frustrated that I died the last couple miles. My first half was 2 hours, so I was hoping for closer to a 4 hour marathon after a pretty good first half. I am proud of the time though, especially considering everything that I worked through and the fact that it was my first marathon. I hear your second marathon is usually about 30 minutes faster than your first. I said this would be a one and only marathon, but I am too competitive to say that for sure now. It will definitely be my last marathon until I am done having kids, but maybe someday I will have to run another one so I can break the 4 hr marathon.
I was so excited to see the girlies and Theodore at mile 10!
This was the finishing chute! The weather was perfect and they couldn't have picked a better day. I finished my challenge and have now proved to myself that I still have what it takes.
The race was very well organized and the course was great! There was a pretty big hill in the beginning and a decent hill at the end, but the rest was pretty flat. I loved the bands along the way and there were plenty of people handing out drinks. It was great, especially considering over 15,000 thousand people signed up for the races.
Here is the group of runners at our after race grill out. Teddy wasn't able to run the marathon because of his knee. He wants to run it next year, but please help me convince him to keep off of it for a year. He never gives it a break, so it never gets better.
We also got to celebrate Grandma turning the big 5-0 the day after the race! She ran her first half marathon and did great!!
We will be adding to our family at some point, so I am going to need more ideas of physical challenges in order to prove that I am still a young whipper snapper. I have considered biking, but I don't have the gear and would rather not invest in the equipment. Any ideas?
