July 4th 2011 came with me rolling over and looking at the clock every hour on the hour. 12:30 am…1:45 am…2:30 am….3:45 am…4:15 am and finally the alarm clock went off at 5:00am. Naturally, being the amazing light sleeper that I am when I haven’t had a good night’s sleep (you so don’t believe that do you?), I turned off the alarm clock (meaning to put it on snooze) and told myself that I would wake up in 5 minutes. An hour and a half later I woke up to the little dog’s butt in my face and the husband saying it was 6:30 am. I threw the dog somewhere in the corner, shot out of bed and went running into the bathroom. “Oh God. Oh God! We are going to be late!” (I think I may have resembled the rabbit in Alice and Wonderland slightly) The husband calmly reassured me we had time when I tripped over the leg hole of my underwear as I tried to walk and put them on at the same time (not a good idea for future ref). Calm down he says. We’ll get there he says.
In the car chugging water so I don’t fall out before the race even starts, my nerves creep in. The closer we got to where I needed to be the more I couldn’t seem to feel my feet and for some odd reason I suddenly have the urge to use the bathroom. (TMI, I know) We finally arrived at a closed road and tons of runners walked toward their start wave groups. I hopped out of the car, forgetting that I couldn’t feel my feet, and wobbled just a tad. This was it. Race number on, shoe tag thingy on, and running clothes on…this was it! I fell in line with the others and made my way to Start Wave U.
By the time I got to our starting spot I had probably walked 100 miles, but when the announcer said it was time to start my body was already warmed up and ready to go. I had contemplated walking (I had a plan after all) but I decided to start the race running and run I did…a full 2 minutes and 30 seconds (I told you I had already walked 900 miles to get there). The route was nice. Bands were playing, people were cheering and clapping. I ran/walked the first mile and when I passed the 1 Mile marker a smile crept up on my face. I was finally doing it and there was only 5 more miles to go. I ran mile 2, and by the time mile 3 came along I was ready to go (no not go as in run—go as in go home). Heartbreak Hill or Cardiac Hill as they sometimes call it wasn’t all that bad. I was expecting it to be this Mt. Everest of a hill, but it wasn’t. It WAS a pain in the ass to run (that’s why I stopped running half way up) but all in all it wasn’t so bad. Mile 4 was my “what the hell were you thinking” mile. By this point I saw most people walking and talking a lot more. My stomach was full of water and since I apparently have a bathroom issue, I stayed away from too much more of it.
Something happened when I passed the 5 mile marker. My legs didn’t bother me quite as much and my body wasn’t as tired. I pumped my arms as fast as I could and power walked/ran the fifth mile. Mentally I was through saying “wtf???” and I was telling myself that I had finally done it. “You did it! You made it! One more mile and you will have your tee shirt and you will be able to say you finished the race! YOU DID IT!!!!”
With the mile 6 marker in sight, I found my ‘go-get em’ song, T.I.’s Bring Em Out, and ran my ass off for the rest of the way. There was no way I was going to walk across that finish line. One foot in front of the other I started off slowly at first but when I heard someone say the finish line was just beyond the flashing traffic light—I zoomed through the crowd. The white banner up ahead said “FINISH” in big bold print and I ran as fast as I could rapping and singing along with T.I. and Jay Z and made it across with a sigh of relief. I scooped up my shirt, grabbed some goodies from the food tables Publix had set up (I just love them), and made my way like a zombie to the family meet up area. I tried standing at first, but I gave up on that after about 1 minute. I plopped down on the grass chugging my water and trying not to fall out (I knew I would go into a coma if I did). 38 weeks, $33 entry fee, hundreds of gallons of sweat, jacked up sweated out hair do’s, thousands of calories burned, hundreds of salads, and 40lbs later I did it….and by golly I would do it all over again and next year I plan on doing just that! Happy 4th!
Here are my race results:
Chip Time: 1:46:23
Distance: 10k
Clock Time: 3:07:34
Overall Place: 49,018 out of 55,090
Gender Place: 22,724 out of 26,705
Division Place: 3157 out of 3507
Age Grade: 28.6% (not the greatest. LOL)
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