my first quarter marathon

it was exciting, exhilarating, nausea inducing, hot, fun, tiring, sweaty, happy, sunny, exhausting, thrilling and an all around great experience!

sunday may 30, 2010 i completed the madison quarter marathon. saturday morning i went to the madison running expo to pick up my racing packet... the expo center was conveniently located right next to the world's largest brat fest (i attend every year, obviously). a friend's band was playing that afternoon, so i got my timing chip/shirt/bib number then took a short walk to enjoy a few brats and some fabulous music. walking into the running expo, i felt like a total outsider. i'm still the non-runner runner. i'm not sure when i'll feel like a runner, but time will tell i guess :)

saturday night i went out with friends to celebrate a birthday, but left early to make sure i got enough zs for the run. i was so nervous in general, i barely got 5 hours of sleep. adjustments will be made next time. i felt fine the whole run, but i know my body would have appreciated more sleep. i, of course, forgot my running shirt in the dryer at home, so i went out and purchased a brand new one from good ol' target saturday night.

i arrived at the race starting line very early, but it was cool to see the full marathoners start. i view them as crazy people...so i guess that means i'm a quarter crazy? lol. they have mega-dedication (considering the weather that day, holy lord they do... details later). it was weird to have so many people in running gear EVERYWHERE. the starting and finish lines were on the capital square, pretty awesome i must say...our capital building is the bees knees.

i had no idea what time it was, but i was in the right spot. unfortunately, i failed to find the porta potty zone pre-race...i was one of the few, the proud, the mid-race porta potty users. as soon as we started, before i even crossed the starting line plane, i knew i would be stopping for a pit stop at some point. i made it to the 2 mile marker and made a bee line for the nearest porta potty (that's 2 bee references so far, yeah you read them). i felt much better after that minus the humid hot hot hot scorchingly sunny day.

i felt pretty good the whole run, but the last .5 mile or so was up an incline and definitely caused a little "oh dear i might puke" moments. the weather definitely had to do with that, the temperature was 80 degrees by the time i crossed the finish line (it got to 90 before the marathoners were done). between miles 4 and 5 there were no water stops, that was pretty rough too and there seemed to be less shade available. the whole run was about 10-15 degrees above what i normally run in, hotness to the max.

my timing chip reports a finish time of 1:12:38 and i am thrilled. i'm thinking the porta potty stop didn't really change my time too much, i'm guessing i would have slowed down for a bit without that pause in the run. that total is just over 11 minute mile pace, and my only goal was to do 12 or less... mission accomplished!

i got my quarter marathon finisher metal, a couple cheese sticks and a water. i was the very essence of a hot, sweaty mess and darn proud of it. :)