Post marathon musings. . .

Thank you to everyone for all of your support and notes of congratulations. I don’t know if I could have made it through the training without all of you. I saw that people were reading the blog, so I couldn’t miss a run and let you all down.

Now that the marathon is over, I am having mini-flashbacks to it. Here are a few which you may find entertaining:

• After the race, Cheryl and I were talking and she asked if I had noticed some circular holes in the pavement that were man made.  She had seen them and wondered what they were for.  I saw them, and all I thought about it while running was, “Oh look, some circular holes.”
• I have a confession, I sent a few text messages during the race to Alan, Cristen and my folks so they had some idea of where I was.  Cheryl found this highly amusing, but I only did it when walking up the hills
• There was a course marshall who was standing there just holding his flag directing the runners, I said to him as I ran past, “Come on!  I’m running here, the least you could do is wave the flag a little.”  He laughed.
• I saw a woman run into someone’s front yard, into bushes and take a whiz.  Classy.
• I saw a guy run off the course, and I thought he was going to go pee in the bushes as well, but he just ran over to a lilac bush and smelled the flowers.  That made me smile.
• I was running past a couple that were running the half-marathon and I heard one of them say, “We really should have trained for this.”
• There were lots of dogs in yards though out the marathon and most seemed perplexed by having hundreds of people running past their yards.  I felt sorry for some of them.  Others seem to think it was the best thing ever.
• The course crossed over train tracks at numerous times and as the race went on, I became terrified that a huge freight train would come through and I would have to stop for ten to fifteen minutes while I waited for it to pass.  Luckily that did not happen.
• I don’t know if I enjoy racing.  There is too much feed back on the course with mile-markers and race clocks.  I think I am a more pure runner (for lack of a better term).  I didn’t give myself much information on my training runs.  At times it wouldn’t be until mile 10 that I finally would have a look at my watch and iPod thingy to tell me how far I’d gone and how long it took.   I wasn’t able to zone out how I do when I have my better runs.  Races let me be in my head too much.  The less feedback the better for me.
• At one point, I thought to myself, “Wow, I am doing this!”

I’m sure other memories will come along, but that’s what I can remember now.

I think I may be sick in the head because I am already thinking about the next one.  Don’t worry Alan, I swear I won’t do another full marathon this year.  I will probably do a half-marathon soon.  There is a very good possibilty of that.  I see that there is one in the Outer Banks in the fall, plus one in Raleigh in the fall as well.  There’s one in Chicago in August and another in September.  We’ll see where this year takes us. 

In the mean time, I am supposed to rest for one more day according to Hal Higdon’s post-marathon schedule.  So, no running tomorrow which is okay with me.  I am looking forward to a light jog with Riley on Thursday though.  Then we’ll see where my legs take me.

-Erin