My 4 Hours and 54 Minutes

Hopefully this will be the last post regarding the marathon for a while, now that it's finally done and over with. 26.2 miles of running in the city of Long Beach in 4:54 time. I felt great at first when we begin at 7:15am and averaged about a 10 minute mile up to mile 18. It went down hill from there as we had to stop, walk, and jog every half mile, due to pain in my knees and thigh, and the exhausted legs of Gary. I was depressed at first when I knew the 4:30 pace runners ran past us, and even more devastated when the older 60 year olds were running past us at mile 23. I thought it was over. All that training, all that time, and we would finish at a horrible time. Luckily, things weren't as bad as I thought, and we ended up jogging the last mile or so to the finish line, and realized the time finished was not as bad as I had originally thought.

A few memorable things during the grueling run:
1) Passed by nice scenery, with the Queen Mary in view
2) A female spectator yelling "You're almost there!" at the 5 mile mark...and another lady running saying "What is she talking about?"
3) Male spectator yelling "Only 20 miles left!" at the 6 mile mark. That is just wrong!
4) Male running singing "Eye of the Tiger" out of tune to the top of his lungs, and another running basically telling him to shut up in an amusing way.
5) Volunteers passing out watermelon, gummy bears, donut holes, beer, and motrin. None of which I took.
6) Smelly porta-potties
5) PAIN, PAIN, and did I mention PAIN in the knees and thigh
6) Gas...no explanation necessary...
7) Seeing the lead runners coming around at 21 miles when we were only at 13. Those guys/gals are amazing!
8) And my favorite part....THE FINISH LINE!!!

I'm so happy that I finally did it and that this 18 month training is over. Until next time...