Wednesday, September 22, 2010

My Busy-ness

What's been sucking my time all summer you ask?

Well, I'll tell you.

It looked like this:





That's part of my four month training schedule.

Remember those half marathons Vanessa and I have been running?


Well, one of us, (and we can't remember who it was so we'd know who to blame!) - thought it would be fun/a good idea/challenging/ whatever, to run a full marathon.

That's 26.2 miles.

Yeah. It's a long way.

Let me explain. Vanessa and I are not athletic. Yes, I know, we've run some half marathons. Well, walked/run them. And they've been tough. We're really NOT very athletic. But we were told that we could train for a full marathon in four months - and all the running sites online agree - so, for some very odd reason, (now that I look back on it, it does seem so VERY odd), we thought, running a full marathon - "Yeah, good idea!"

So we signed up. And we started training.

At first it wasn't too bad. The runs were four days a week. Not bad, right? Not at first. The runs were rather short - three 3 mile runs and a 5 mile. No problem.
Then, of course, they get longer; Two 3 mile runs, a 4 mile run and a 9 mile run.
Yeah, a little tougher.

The training wouldn't have been so bad if we weren't also working 40 or more hours a week and attempting to have a social life of sorts. Lucky for me Kim picked up most if not all, of the gardening chores. At least two runs per week had to be done after working 8 hours on my feet all day. When we started hitting the longer runs of 12 to 18 miles all I could do the rest of the day was recuperate.

So I ran both the longest runs of the week during my weekend. Not the best plan. I really needed more rest then NONE between the longest runs. Oh well, hindsight and all that.

We did get some great advice on where to run a marathon and I'm glad we listened: choose a destination marathon.

So we looked around and found one happening at Lake Tahoe. A place we'd never been. Beautiful!

And Lake Tahoe is very pretty.

Here we are pre-race.





Mile 13; halfway through.





































Mile 20 with beautiful Emerald Bay. You can see the 2nd hill behind Vanessa we still have to climb.






I'm still not sure how, but we made it to the finish. (Don't want to mention how sick I was from mile 15 to mile 21. But I was; nearly vomiting and almost passing out.)

Actually, I do know how we made it to the finish line. Hard work and perseverance!!! And thanks to my lovely daughter for never giving up on me!

Post race well-deserved Champagne.




And hours later we're still managing to stay upright and go out for a fantastic celebratory dinner.





The time spent at Lake Tahoe was great. Loved finishing the marathon. Enjoyed spending time with Kim, Vanessa and Chris.

Smartest thing we did the next day: NOTHING!!!!




Would I run another marathon? Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo. But I'm glad we managed to do at least this one.

9 comments:

Katie said...

Wow, that is a HUGE accomplishment! Congratulations.

Goneferalinidaho said...

Congrats! That was a lot of hard work for you two, you both should be very proud.

Southern Lady said...

Congratulations...that is a lot of hard work. So glad that you were able to share that experience with your daughter. Carla

Jennifer AKA keewee said...

well done, now you can say "been there, done that!"
The bird you were asking about is a juvenile redwing blackbird.

BGgarden said...

This is a wonderful achievement and what a beautiful place to run in.
Hope you have many more great runs like the one you shared. I'm inspired - Bren

Pat said...

Funny girl. Don't think getting sick is too funny but you did it...you finished all 26.2 miles. You said it's the first and last...are you sure about that. Your daughter might not agree. :)
Congrats Kiddo !!

Connie said...

You are amazing..... Congratulations on your accomplishment!

Laura Paine Carr said...

Wow. I am so impressed.
My daughter is training for a !/2 marathon right now. No. I am not doing it with her, though I probably should get my tutu in gear and go. Daughters are soooo good for us! Inspire. Boss. Encourage. What oh what would we do without them? Probably gain way too much weight!
Congratulations!

LJB said...

Not sure how I missed this one when you posted it. I'm really proud of you for this accomplishment!