#5

On Saturday I ran my fifth marathon.  When I ran my first marathon back in 2004 I remember thinking how cool it would be if one day I could say that I ran 5 marathons.  After I ran that first marathon  I was ok with only doing one marathon.  It hurt bad!  After having kids, I really grew a love for running.  It is my time.  Sometimes that is the only time of the day that I'm not changing diapers or feeding little mouths.   I really do enjoy it.  I guess that is why I have ran 3 marathons in 7 months.  

I am proud to say that I have officially ran 5 marathons.  And I don't think I am done yet, but I am for sure done for a while.  The marathon on Saturday was HARD.  Very hard.  It was in Rancho Palos Verdes.  I could see the ocean for about 90% of the race.  The other 10% was through beautiful neighborhoods.  It was definitely the most scenic marathon I have ever ran.  The weather couldn't have been better.  It was overcast, cool and even drizzled a little.  Perfect running weather.  The course.....was awful.  It was hill after hill after hill after mountain.  Seriously.  I felt like I was always climbing a hill.  Mentally it was really hard.  Along with the marathon there was a half marathon.  The marathon course was the half marathon twice.  It was hard running past the finish line, and still having 13.1 miles to run.  There were a couple thousand running the half marathon, but only a couple hundred doing the full marathon.  There were a few times on the course when my friend and I were the only people we saw on the course.  It really lacked that enthusiasm and excitement that races usually bring.  

This was the first race that I ran the entire thing with someone and I loved it!  My friend Jordan is a rock star and  helped me so much during this race.  Our running styles/pace are almost identical.  When one of us struggled, the other helped keep the pace going.  I would have walked (and possibly cried) a lot more if I didn't have Jordan there.  

Overall, the run went great.  Since the race was so small I ended up getting 1st in my age division.  There were only 5 in my division:)  We finished the race in 3 hours and 55 minutes.  Not bad for needing 2 bathroom breaks, having a killer course and running 26.42 miles.....yeah, the course ended up .22 miles longer than it should have been.  I have always ran the quick and down hill marathons so it was good to challenge myself a little with some killer hills.  It was a fun race, but not one I would do again:)

I've gotta give a little shout out to my personal cheerleaders.  They are the best!  We only have one car right now and since I needed to drive down to the race I told Josh not to worry about coming down.  He wanted to support me so he got the kids out of bed at 4:50am and went down with Jordan and I!  He dropped us off at the start and took the kids to breakfast.  After breakfast they came and supported me throughout the race.  I think I saw them 5 times.  It was so nice!  Josh would have snacks for us, water bottles and Gatorade, just in case we were needing something.  I'm so lucky to have a husband and family that supports me in all of the races I do.  Josh sacrifices his Saturday morning surf sessions so he can watch the kids while I go on my long runs!  That is a HUGE deal to him....and he never complains.  As much as I love races,  I think I need to take a break from them so he could go have some fun now!

 (don't mind the chunk of licorice in Zoie's mouth.  After being up since 4:50am and watching mom race all morning, the kids were done!  Candy was our survival at that point)