13.1 miles. Finished. It was beautiful weather and fun to run on a new course. I was pretty nervous about looking like a whale running amongst the beautiful people and I am happy to report that I didn't feel out of place at all. It amazed me to see the different shapes, sizes, ages and skill levels of the participants. Now a lot of the fear is gone that I was feeling towards the full marathon. However, I have to say that a whole new fear is there. I felt really good during the marathon (besides the fact that I super-hydrated and had to go to the restroom at the 1/2 mile mark... no joke!) and felt really positive at mile 7 when I still felt really strong and could keep going for several hours if needed.
Manda and I reviewed our training manual the day before and covered some really important mental techniques and the power that your brain has on your physical performance. We decided to stay really positive and run some mental videos through our head when needed. I have to say that it worked amazingly. Manda was ahead of me pretty much from 1/4 mile to the finish line. I really didn't see her at all except for around mile 6 when she was passing me because she was a couple miles ahead of me and had hit the turn around point and headed back to the finish line. She had offered to stay with me the entire time but I really wanted her to do the best she could and not stay behind with me and my much slower pace. She did great. She finished the marathon with an average of an 11 minute pace. For a 13 mile run, she did awesome!!! I was so proud of her for making that run on her own.
Our training book emphasized how important it is to feed yourself positive thoughts and mental images. We were taught to construct video's in our heads of our favorite runs, times that we felt happy, strong, beautiful weather, remember what we were wearing, how we felt and so on. Once we have that in our head we are to play it over and over and over again and there would be a positive physical reaction that comes from playing this " mental-video". As we remember those times and things we can actually become stronger and thus creating more energy. It is amazing to experience these things as an act of faith but see the actual results from experimenting with it and see the proven results. It did work, but only if we were willing to implement them and really concentrate. Manda came away saying that it was a difficult process for her because she didn't want to relive what were once some of her favorite memories of running, she really felt the need to not relive them and create even better ones. A huge blessing came from the half marathon in this aspect for her, she was able to create a new favorite run. She said the half marathon is now the new "mental-video" for her as she continues to work through the full marathon.
I had to pull out my mental video at mile 9. I was pretty amazed at how good I felt up until that point. At about 9 1/4- 9 1/2 miles my knee began to hurt. I knew I had to concentrate on my breathing pattern, mental thoughts and just make my legs keep going. By mile 11 I was completely discouraged in getting absorbed in the pain. The more I thought about the pain, the more the pain increased. I slowed down and found myself walking a lot by mile 11. Those last 2 miles seemed huge and I wasn't sure for a few moments that I was going to be able to run anymore at all. My legs started cramping and shot upward. That is a pleasant feeling--- cramping in the bottom! NOT. I started to remember the mental video and began to make my feet run just a little bit further. Soon I found myself crossing that last bridge and seeing the crowd cheering. It was both a feeling of accomplishment and discouragement to be honest. I felt good that I did it and discouraged at the thought of running even further the next weekend and then the thought of that run only being our half-way mark felt overwhelming.
I guess it is like life. If we don't take one step at a time and allow ourselves to become stronger over time it can seem impossible and even make us want to give up, feeling discouraged. I just had to tell myself to think of the accomplishment and remember that it wasn't that long ago that I never thought I would be able to jog 13 miles. That is huge!!! I just need to worry about accomplishing that day's goal and do one training run at a time. Easier to say than do but look how far I have come already. Even if Manda and I didn't run the race step by step together, the journey is what we have taken together and I am so grateful for that. I look forward to continuing on this journey and being inspired and reaching one accomplishment at a time.
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