another marathon has come and gone

I’m going to try and summarize the whole trip in this post. I may leave our short trip to Charleston out, but know that we went for at least a little while.

Friday I rode down to Kiawah Island with two other runner friends. It was a somewhat eventful trip (we managed to stop at one shady gas station where there was a sign next to the magazines, “Don’t open books. If I see you open magazines, you will pay $20. You look, you buy.”) I told Marc to go over and look at the sign, but DO NOT open one of them!

We managed to arrive at ResortQuest at the same time as my dad and stepmom. They were literally right behind us in the parking lot. We got all checked in and then made the long drive over to the villa. I paid for a two bedroom villa on Seabrook Island….and they gave us a one bedroom. Wouldn’t have been terrible, except ResortQuest closes at 5, and by the time we found our villa, it was 5:10.

I quickly threw my stuff in random spots and we had to run out the door and get over to Kiawah so I could get my race packet and make it to the TNT dinner. Earlier I had wondered why I never received the “official” emails from the Kiawah marathon and Friday night, I figured out why. Whoever submitted my information spelled my name wrong, and most likely spelled my email address wrong. Major fail. And I’m particular about my name….especially if it’s going to be on my bib number, which it was in this case. There was nothing the TNT people could do.

Dinner was cool and one of the speakers was this girl named Daisy (from the Charlotte area.) Saturday was her 15-year anniversary of being cancer free. She celebrated with her first marathon.

The rest of the night was uneventful, except for when my husband was trying to find the villa. My dad was in the middle of the road with a flashlight and Kenny drove right by him. The following was our conversation:
Him: I can’t find the place.
Me: Did you drive by someone with a flashlight?
Him: Yeah.
Me: That was my dad.
Him: I saw some random person with the flashlight and drove on. I didn’t know who it was.
Me: That was my dad. Turn around.
Him: You never know with people.

Basically, my husband thought my dad was a crazy person….which he could have been, I guess 🙂

Saturday I got up at 5 a.m. (I woke up at 4:57 a.m….nervous energy!) I almost walked out with the wrong shoes. At least I took two pairs of running shoes!

My shoes all ready to go:

Me, all ready to go:

The race started at 8. I was dropped off at the shuttle (long story, but the people on the island wanted us to turn back around and get off the island. I quickly jumped out of my dad’s van and told him I’d see him later. Those Kiawah people were SERIOUS about security!) We finally made our way to the starting line at 7:40.

At the start, a TNT alum, Katie, and I decided to run together. We wanted to break 5 hours. We had a good shot of doing it, too. I won’t go into too many details, but we were maintaining a pace under 11 minutes per mile. At mile 12, we saw the marathon WINNER pass us. We were lapped in a marathon. Seriously.

It was at this point that I realized something was wrong with me. (This is where you should stop reading if you don’t want too many details.) I kept feeling like I had to pee, but I actually couldn’t. I finally looked down at my water bottle and realized I wasn’t drinking anything. While it was cold (in the 40s) and cloudy, I was sweating up a storm and completely dehydrated. And by the time I realized this, it was too late. It literally took me 8 miles to recover from that…and I never fully recovered.

At mile 19, I told Katie to go ahead of me if she was going to break her record. It was at this point that I also got salt packets, pretzels and someone told me to drink water and not Gatorade. I also started praying and making deals with God. Let me feel better, and He could let it rain (because prior to this, I prayed that it wouldn’t rain until I was done. I know, crazy prayers.) At mile 20, I felt a little better and it started to rain. 🙂

I did finish the marathon. Kenny shot these photos (the blurry one is to show that I really did lift my feet, I just never look like it in photos!)

I finished in 5:28. Not great. Not my worst time ever, but not what I was hoping for.

My “medal” was recycled glass. I’m going to make it into an ornament.

Today we checked out. I forgot to mention that while I was running, my family dealt with the whole paying for two rooms and getting one thing. Expedia is supposed to credit me now. Oh, and ResortQuest did contact me on Twitter when I tweeted about them. I’ll have positive things to say just as soon as I get the credit.

Me and the husband before we left:

The whole family:

This was our view leaving Kiawah. Too much rain:

We stopped for lunch and then for gas and at the gas station, we decided to check out the magic seats in the Fit. The front seat lays down and is flush with the back seat, so I could stretch my legs out. Perfect for someone with marathon legs!!

Kenny’s view:

Sure, I look short and fat in this picture, but I was SO comfortable:

My view:

All in all, a fun trip. Will I do this race again? Probably not. I hated the two loops. Give me 26.2 miles that don’t loop and I’m good. I got incredibly bored and there was NO support. I saw a medical “bike” around mile 23. So you’re basically screwed for 23 miles. Just don’t get hurt. There were no tables for people to get any sort of first aid. The water stops were great, but I needed more people along the way. It was a lot smaller than what I’m used to.

I’ll definitely be back to visit Charleston, but probably not Kiawah. If you don’t live on the island, you’re shunned and I don’t want to feel that way if I’m on vacation.

As for today, I’m extremely sore. I have a chiropractor appointment in the morning that I absolutely need. I’m planning on taking several weeks off from running, and I don’t see another marathon in my immediate future. I’m thinking more along the lines of a 10k or just taking up walking.