Annalisa's Blog: St. George Marathon 2011

Let me begin by saying that I think I have ran my last marathon without properly training. Without training they just take too long and frankly I'm bored and tired of being out there by the time I'm finished. Having kids has just thrown everything off. I figure one day when they can be left alone safely I'll really train again, until then it's lousy training and slow times. That's okay because our kids are only young once and I'm not willing to give up significant amounts of time with them in order to train.
As usual we arrived in St.George Thursday evening. John volunteered at the expo Friday morning then came back to the house to retrieve his family. We spent a couple hours looking around and spending way too much money on running junk. Afterward we ate at Pizza Hut-veggie pizza is my favorite pre-race meal. We drove up and dropped some Ensure's off at mile 14 for a little boost mid-race.
Saturday morning was warm...way too warm. One of the warmest starts to a marathon ever. I didn't have high hopes since I did only a couple long runs-my longest being around 13.5 miles, which was a bad run itself. We've had so much going on lately that running is not our priority. Anyway the gun went off and I started running. I was doing the 4-1 method. In the beginning I made a conscious effort to run slow, so slow it felt too slow. The sun came out, but we had cloud cover so it wasn't bad, along with a breeze. All at once the breeze ended and the sun came out full force. This was the first marathon I've ever wondered if I would finish. I didn't feel terrible, but I was drinking 4 cups of water at each stop, and yet I was still unbelievably thirsty. My belly was so full I physically couldn't drink anymore. At one point I gagged and thought I would be sick. I was actually scared of heat stroke. Of course, my stubbornness would keep me going until I passed out on the side of the road.
At mile 18 there was a woman with little girl's passing out big fat Popsicles. I took one and walked the next mile, savoring my Popsicle and hoping it would lower my core temperature. In terms of endurance I felt pretty stinking great, even my muscles felt good. But, I stuck to my 4-1 and walked most of the hills. By mile 22 I was just bored and by 24 I was super bored and just wanted to be done. In fact I wanted to be done running so badly that I just walked. I was handed two bags of ice and I slowly walked and sucked down every single piece of ice. It was sooo HOT!!! Finally I saw the finish line, I didn't even sprint in like I usually do, just took it nice and slow. I crossed that lousy finished line in 5:19...WHAT?! Up until mile 24 I was on track to easily finish under five hours but I guess those lazy miles took their toll. I didn't even care. If I had trained with a goal I would've been disappointed, but it was so hot and I had promised we'd take the boys swimming at the rec center so I had to have energy to keep up with them...and I felt great and had tons of energy. In fact I'm not even all that sore. My back is the worst, then my quads. Otherwise every thing's great.
John and I are both anxious to really train one year. John ran 4:17, not bad for two long runs.
My mom said runner's looked pretty bad coming in. Every runner I spoke with told me how lousy they felt due to the heat, it was something else. It was blazing HOT! I was so glad to be done.
We had a great time swimming at the Washington Rec Center. It was a great pool with a fantastic lazy river and water slide. We were there for hours and had a blast! I also think it helped with the soreness. That evening we went to dinner at Red Robbin, followed by Heath Bar ice cream. Carson woke up in the middle of the night puking, luckily he ran to the kitchen sink so I had no mess to clean up. Yuck! Sunday morning we woke up, cleaned up and came home. Hopefully in a day or two I will be able to walk normally.

Me and JohnBoy. I think we look a little too good considering we just ran 26.2 miles.

Carson won this high-tech running shirt at the expo, he thought it was awesome. He made a request to wear his marathon shirt and rubber bracelet to school on Monday. I love it that he talks about running a marathon with me.