made it to grandma's 2012

To the finishers go the spoils!

You know me, this is the first marathon post.  I can never sum it all up in just one measly post.

So.....Grandma's marathon was just as fun this year as I remember it being last year, but for different reasons.

The husband rocks.  He's been so unbelievably supportive of me through all my training over the past couple of years, and this year he quietly trained for Grandma's....no dailymile account, no blog....(I guess there's only room for one attention-seeker in this marriage).....he just logged his miles and mentally prepared to run 26.2 miles.

As soon as he signed up for his own marathon adventure, the husband always said he wanted me to run my race and he would run his, and we would meet up at the end. So on the eve of the marathon, I was all set to try for my 4:30 goal,

5:15 a.m Ready to get the party started.

But then, on marathon morning, I had the realization that this may be the only marathon he ever does and as such, my only opportunity to run a marathon WITH him, not just be in the same marathon on the same day.  That made the PR not very important. I decided I'd much rather share the experience with him from start to finish and save the PR attempt for another day.  Hell, I can try for it in less than four months!!

So we ran together. And it was awesome! We kicked ass in the first (warm, HUMID) 13.1 miles, and then needed to dial it back significantly in the second half.  We walked every water stop from start to finish (and those water stops are lonnnggggg) and threw in additional walking as needed.  Our splits were all over the map.  See for yourself:

Split	Time	Distance	Avg Pace
Summary	4:52:18.6	26.31	11:06
1	10:14.4	1.00	10:14
2	10:10.1	1.00	10:10
3	10:38.1	1.00	10:38
4	10:06.8	1.00	10:07
5	10:00.9	1.00	10:01
6	10:51.8	1.00	10:52
7	10:07.8	1.00	10:08
8	10:47.5	1.00	10:47
9	11:34.0	1.00	11:34
10	9:50.5	1.00	9:50
11	10:32.9	1.00	10:33
12	11:47.9	1.00	11:48
13	10:25.8	1.00	10:26
14	11:21.2	1.00	11:21
15	10:17.4	1.00	10:17
16	11:40.1	1.00	11:40
17	13:07.5	1.00	13:07
18	10:35.5	1.00	10:35
19	11:17.9	1.00	11:18
20	12:43.2	1.00	12:43
21	12:45.3	1.00	12:45
22	11:56.6	1.00	11:57
23	11:57.0	1.00	11:57
24	11:12.7	1.00	11:13
25	12:06.7	1.00	12:07
26	11:00.4	1.00	11:00
27	3:08.9	0.31	10:00

When all was said and done, we had a PR for the husband and a PR for the bitter hag!!  Our official times were 4:54:09 for me and 4:54:10 for the husband.  Not sure why I beat him by a second but he's a good sport and seems ok with it.

Post-race!  Ready to nap and then go out for a meal of red meat.

More to come on the day itself.  But I just had to share the proof of my war wound from the day:

Is it dirt?  Nope.

Yep, that's blood on my precious Injinjis. Around mile 25 it suddenly felt as though my toenail had been ripped off.  Nothing so dramatic actually happened but it hurt like a sonofabeyoch. But at mile 25?  No way was I walking at that point! I just kept on going to the finish. I even managed to smile for the MarathonPhoto folks. Yeah, I'm a honeybadger like that.

More stories about marathon day coming up, including the visions of the guy lubing up with vaseline in full view of everyone, and women dropping trou to pee mid race, also in full view of everyone. Runners are gross.  But that's part of the fun!

The honeybadger at mile 25.5.