Picking up from yesterday –
I was slightly scared about this race, because I’ve heard many times if you can’t keep up in Rock ‘n’ Roll races that they rope off parts of the course and divert you. So, you’re cutting off miles before you even know it.
And being that I’ve promised myself I’d run a marathon every calendar year for the rest of my life – and that I couldn’t, in good conscience, count a marathon toward that goal if I knew it wasn’t truly 26.2… and being that it was December(!)… I was gonna be in trouble if I didn’t make it to cutoffs in time!
My phone is on its very last leg, and had totally died during the race (even with putting it on airplane mode and being fully charged in the morning). Thankfully when I made it to mile 19, that was the beginning of a loop that came back around. And the person manning the 21 mile timing mat had a van with him and charged my phone while I looped around.
I was so happy to have music back once I got to the 21-mile mark. Yee haw!
I was doing pretty okay-ish for most of the race, but I took what felt like forever to get through that loop.
The miles felt longer (even though almost certainly they weren’t). It just felt like that loop was never ending.
And – yet again – as though I didn’t learn my lesson in SF to not use the bathroom, I stopped to use the bathroom! (This time there was no line, though.)
I don’t remember usually stopping during marathons to use the bathroom. I gotta start eating differently, I guess… Anyway.
At least what felt like my two longest miles were the ones in which my phone was charging. Let’s just say my lack of energy was all on purpose so I could let my phone charge as long as possible. Why not?
I got my phone back and started blasting my jams (Carly Rae Jepsen a lot) as I went the rest of the way.
And then, I saw the sag wagon behind me.
It was scary how it just came up behind us all.
I always thought I’d have more of a warning if that happened… I mean, I did see it in the distance. So, I tried to run away from it. And yet, one minute it seemed pretty far away. The next it seemed within striking distance of me. dum dum duuuuuuum [scary chords]
In between mile twenty-four and twenty-five (so we are seriously nearing the home stretch here). This man comes out of the sag wagon to collect us.
He runs up behind me with a really cheery peppy attitude and nicely says, “Hey, I’m gonna give you a.. [oh, I forget what word he used… boost? nudge? – something positive-ish sounding, but we all know it’s not…]. And even though he was being the nicest, I whipped around and turned my head to him as though I was in that movie The Exorcist. I yelled at him, “I’ll die first!”
And this is where I’ll pick up tomorrow!