Monday, October 22, 2007

MARATHON!

I ran a full marathon!



Last Sunday, I ran the Toronto Marathon and it was amazing. Since it was my first marathon, and since I had only ever run 29K in my training, I was petrified I would not be able to finish the full 42K. Costin (my husband) was sweet and woke up earlier with me to take me to the starting line, even though it was 7am on a Sunday and the TTC was closed. He even tried remembered to bring his camera. It all felt very surreal when I was at the starting line. I kept thinking, “You are finally going to do it!” and it got me even more excited. I easily ran through the first 21K lovin’ my decision to purchase a tiny ipod shuffle instead of lugging around my larger nano. I was also happy that Mary, my younger sister and regular race partner (although, not this time), helped me make a race-specific play list. I highly recommend Bennie Benassi as well as some classic 90s club anthems like Mojo’s “The Music Sounds Better With You”. I also threw in some gangsta rap for good measure.

By the 35th kilometre mark, I thought I was going to die. Luckily, Derek (my brother-in-law), was running a leg of the marathon’s relay event and my sister and my cute nieces came out to cheer us on. I was surprised by how much my energy level rose when I saw them. Derek was even nice enough to run with me for a bit after his race and give me a pep talk. Things are a bit blurry after that until I hit King and University where there was a DJ pumping out JT’s “Sexy Back”. Up until that point I had been hobbling along, but I can always dig deeper for JT. By that point, I could see the Parliament buildings and I knew the finish line was just around the corner. When I hit Queen’s Park, I could saw Costin, Sue and Eden and heard them cheering me on. Of course I was my usually cocky self, even 41K in:



I finished in 4:27:50, which is faster than I estimated by 2:10. I was so happy to finish standing up and to have run most of the race. Thought, I wasn’t as happy the next day when I discovered that the average finishing time was 4:09:25 and that 64% of the participants had finished before me. Damn my Type-A personality! When Brianne started the Skinny Jeans collective in June, I only had one goal: Run a full marathon. New goal: Run a full marathon in under 4 hours.



Next I’m training for a half-marathon in May. I may run two of them, two weeks apart. Crazy? Always!

-Al

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

So proud of you!!! I really want to do the half with you in Ottawa!

Anonymous said...

my new running playlist is restricted to music that was written and recorded anywhere from 1981-1989 and consists mostly of rock ballads and new wave anthems. you should try it :)

where are we running the half? ottawa or toronto?

Anonymous said...

There are two half in May. One in Ottawa and one in Sudbury. I'm toying with the idea of racing the one in Sudbury with Mary and walk-running the one with you in Ottawa...

RealGirl said...

Congrats on acheiving your OSJ goals! It's so much inspiration for the rest of us! (Although I have no desire to torture myself for 4.5 hours, I'm happy to let you do it).