Final Post. After running hundreds of miles this year in anticipation of the Detroit Marathon, and waiting and waiting, it finally came. I was hoping for around 4 hours, 30 minutes. Final time: 5 hours, 16 minutes.

I was up by 4am this morning, and down to Detroit around 6am. Rachel and Trevor were there also; all of us nervous for the run that we have been thinking about for the last 5 months. We knew there were so many things that could go wrong during the run, but we were staying positive. We worked for this, and no matter what, we were going to cross that finish line.

We could not have asked for better weather. It was cool when we started at 7:15; well, cold actually. I had on running pants and gloves. The gloves were gone at mile 3, and the pants were gone at mile 8. (I did have shorts on underneath.) We started smooth and tried to stay around a 10 minute 30 second pace. The Ambassador Bridge was around mile 2 or 3, and it was beautiful to see the sun coming up over the Detroit River. The bridge was warmer than I thought it would be. I was expecting a lot of wind and cold breeze off the water, but it was warm. Maybe because of all the bodies around each other at the beginning of the race. Running along the river in Windsor was also beautiful, and the sun was shinning brightly by the time we made it through the underwater tunnel and back into MI.

We had Chris, my mom, Trevor’s mom, and Jacque greet us outside of the tunnel, which was about mile 8 1/2. They held up signs for us, and we were feeling pretty pumped at that point. We stopped to use the restroom, and some guy cut in front of me in line (not a friendly runner thing to do) , and we lost about 10 minutes of time on that break.  But that was ok, we continued on, past the 11 (where a group was handing out M&M’s that tasted so good at that point), 12, 13 mile mark. We ran through Mexican town, Indian village, and several water and aid stations.

We were feeling pretty good, and then around mile 17 or 18  Rachel’s knees starting hurting her, and she said that she was seeing stars. We tried to walk for awhile, but she was still not feeling well, and being the sweet-heart she is, she told us to go on ahead without her. She did not want to hold us back. We said OK, told her to keep going and don’t give up, and we started running again. Then it hit me. She is the reason I am in this race. She asked me if I wanted to run in it with her back in about March, and I had thought she was crazy at the time, but I signed up anyway.  Then I got Trevor to sign up. She was the reason this run got started for us, and there was no way I was going to keep going without making sure she made it to the finish line, so I started crying (emotions run high at this point in the run), and I told Trevor good luck and he told me that he loved me (which, being my brother in law, was a very sweet thing to say. I am very weird about saying I love you to people, and it really touched my heart that he said that),  and I walked back to get Rachel.

For the next 8 miles, we walked, ran, took a few breaks, but we stayed side by side. Rachel was still not feeling well, and I questioned myself whether I should keep telling her to run, but I did. I can’t say that I was not a little disappointed that we were walking, because I wanted to give it my all today and cross that finish line with nothing left.  But now I look back, and I feel like I gave my all to my friend, and that means more to me than my pace in the race.

We crossed the finish line holding hands, and I started crying.

It was a great year training, and I am so proud of all the people that I know who ran in the race; including Rachel, Neal, and Trevor.

I am icing my legs right now, taking pain meds, and feeling terrible, but I am finally done. The movie I watched last night “The Spirit of the Marathon” said that there are only two types of runners: non-marathoners, and marathoners, and now I am forever in the marathoners group, and I think it’s pretty cool.

Running a marathon is like a metaphor for  life: you will meet rough patches along the way, and there are times when you will want to give up, but you WILL keep going, and you WILL do your best, and you WILL finish.

I’m resting for the rest of the year. Love, Jen

I will finish the marathon.

I will run the distance comfortably.

I will love the sights, sounds, feelings and camaraderie of running 26.2 miles.

Those guidelines will guide me through the race successfully. There are only a few days left and I feel like a horse at the starting gate… just let me run already! Physically, I am ready as I will ever be. My body has recovered from the last of the long training runs and has been maintained though tapering the last couple weeks. After a couple easy three mile runs this week, the rest of my physical work will be nutritional – lots of complex carbs and water,

while avoiding the urge overeat and take in too many calories. Staples this week include pasta, fruit, vegetables, and whole grain breads. I aim to get a solid nine hours of sleep every night as well, while preparing to get up by 5:00 AM or so on race day.

Meanwhile, I am trying to piece together the run and work on techniques to stay relaxed early in the race, and stay motivated and energetic late in the race. A positive mindset will carry my body the last six or eight miles. It also helped to drive the race route, allowing me to visualize various areas of the course as I run the race in my head.

Another part of my mental preparation is ensuring that I have everything ready for race day. I want to avoid stressing over supplies, clothing and in the case of the Detroit Free Press Marathon, my passport. The latter is required in order to run the six miles portion in Windsor, Ontario. I have made myself a checklist to follow which will help keep me organized as I pack things together.

I am truly looking forward to reaching one of the biggest goals I will ever set for myself: running a marathon, something only 1% of people will achieve in their lifetime. Harkening back to my first post here, “sedit qui timuit ne non succederet”. I will not sit still for fear of failure.

Ambassador Bridge

Yesterday I did a 3 mile run, and while running I was thinking about all the reasons that I run. Some of the obvious reasons are 1) To stay healthy, 2) to decrease the size of my ghetto booty, and 3) to relieve stress and promote an overall sense of well being.  But the number one reason I run is because I want to be around in 60 years to play with my grandchildren. Seriously, I want to be a healthy parent and grand parent. It’s the number one thing I think of when I work out. I don’t have kids yet, so I figure it’s even more important to keep myself in shape because who knows how long it will be before I meet my grand-kids.

The marathon is one week from today. Rachel, Trevor, Jacque and I, drove part of the marathon route in downtown Detroit today. The ambassador bridge looked awesome, and steep! Running over it is going to be very scary for me, since I am a little afraid of heights. We hit the bridge at mile 2 or 3, so the beginning of the race is going to be exciting. The run through Windsor should be fun because it runs along the water.  We come back through the tunnel, which is supposed to be hot and full of exhaust fumes. Great. We run through Mexican town, Indian Village, and some historic home areas. We hit Belle Isle around mile 20. We drove a little of the island today, and it looks like that will be a beautiful part of the race. Hopefully beautiful enough to keep our spirits up since we will be breaking the 20 mile mark there, and we have never ventured into that territory before.  We have gone 20 miles before and felt pretty good after, but adding 6 more miles will be a challenge.

One week from today I will have my feet up on my couch, drinking tea, and reminiscing over my first marathon!!

*Jen*

I woke up early to get ready for my 20 mile run by sipping on some tea and reading “The Ultra Marathon Man.” I have fallen in love with this book over the past few days. The author’s account of how he ran the Western States Endurance run, a 100 mile run, is fascinating to me. Many people think he is crazy for devoting his life to running, but he points out that running is his vice, his way to focus his energy into something that he feels is worthwhile for him. There are plenty of people that watch hours of TV each day, or go out drinking at bars, or gorge themselves on food, etc, etc, all he is doing is running. Trevor has read this book also, and it has really helped with our runs. Today at mile 16 (this was our fastest 16 yet) we were still feeling pretty strong, and had a strong finish. We kept thinking “If Dean (the author of that book) can run 100 miles through rivers, up mountain passes, while super-gluing his blisters together, we can certainly cover 20 miles.” It looks small compared to what this guy was doing.

We had great weather today, cool in the morning, and a slight breeze off the lake. There were plenty of other runners who would say good morning (we were out there at 8am) and some offered words of encouragement. And we always give words of encouragement or say hi to others, even if they don’t respond back. Hopefully, it helps them in some way.  There was one lady we passed twice on the run. She was probably in her late 30′s, maybe early 40′s. She did not seem like the runner type. I hate to stereotype, but if I would have seen her off the trail I would have never guessed she was a runner. The 2nd time we passed her she asked us how many miles we were doing today, and we told her 20 and that we were training for Detroit, and she responded that Detroit is a great marathon, it’s flat and if we can easily run Kensington we will be fine to finish the marathon. That made us feel pretty good. She said that she just ran a 1/2 marathon, and she will be running another marathon in December. We exchanged “good lucks” and went on our way. How cool that she was running in these races, and how quick of us to judge that she was not a runner type. She was doing great! And super friendly.

We fuel with Gatorade instead of water during our runs now, and eat a energy gel pack every 45 minutes to an hour. That seems to keep our energy levels up, and since we have not have one bad long run yet, it must be working. At mile 20 I was tired, but the last few miles we had a great pace, and passed several people in front of us, and finished strong. I feel like we could have finished 26 miles today, but maybe at a slightly slower pace. If the marathon turns out to be like our runs, we should be fine. Our goal is to have a great run and finish strong, and don’t really have a goal time in mind, although finishing under 5 hours would be nice.

I have come to realize that running a marathon is not so much about the marathon, 90% of the the marathon is the training. On marathon day, we complete one run. We eat afterwords, and maybe have some pain for the next week. But the training runs are what it’s all about. It’s everything you do before marathon day that really matters. Rest, nutrition, runs, everything else that goes into it. The marathon is just the icing on the cake.  I have had some great, and some not so great, experiences running this year since April. Those experiences are what is going to stay in my memory for a long time. I don’t plan on running another marathon again, but I love that in 3 weeks I will be able to say “yep, I finished a marathon.” Then I can try something else new…

Love it!

*Jen*

I’m off to ice my still sore legs.

Tired but still moving,

*Jen*

My brother in law, Trevor, has become a different person in the past year since he has gotten serious about running. I remember him being a smoker, and kind of a couch potato (I mean that in a nice way Trev!) when we were younger, and now he is a machine. He is serious about his running, he has tested various numbers of new running shoes, and even got his name in a running magazine a few months ago because he participated in a shoe study.  This is less of a hobby for him and more of a life style change. It has been great to witness that.

My friend Rachel has also become a running machine. In fact, I feel like I am the only one that has not transformed into a running guru, and that’s OK. I’m still having fun. With every week of completed runs, I have seen her confidence grow in all aspects of her life. It has made me realize that running is more than just physically moving your body. It’s also about going outside your comfort zone, and trying new things, and pushing yourself to limits which you did not know you were capable of reaching. That is an important lesson to learn and applies to everyone, whether you run or not. (Although I still chickened out of riding on the tube behind the boat this weekend while we were up north. I know I should try it, but it still scares me. I don’t want to go that far out of my comfort zone.)

This weekend was our second 16 miler. I ran with Trevor, and our friend Shawn. Shawn rode a bike the whole 16 miles. He was a great help, although I felt bad for him since he was using a bike that I think was 30 years old, and had no padding on the seat. He hung in there though, and provided water and Gatorade for us the whole time. We ran from the cottage we were staying at down to the harbor in Presque Isle, MI. It was a beautiful morning, and the boats were still sleeping in the harbor, there was not a lot of movement yet, as it was a holiday weekend and I think people were sleeping in. There was a great breeze just off the water that was very refreshing.

39 days left until the marathon, and I am very excited to finally get to the day we have been training for all year.

I did not bring my camera on the run, but here are some pics I found online of the lighthouse and harbor we ran by, a map of the county we were in, and a pic of us before our run. Trevor is in the black shirt and Shawn in the white.

*Jen*

I ran with Trevor out in Lansing, MI. This is the 1st time I have actually run with him, even though we have been following the same training plan since April, and we are going to do the marathon together.  We live about an hour apart, and it is just not realistic to meet for runs.

I was very nervous about the run; to the point that I was almost in tears when we started. (Of course, I hid that from Trevor, and Mom and Jacque, who were following on bikes behind us.) However, the run went very well considering my poor training the past few weeks. The weather could not have been better. It was cool out, almost on the verge of rain, and cloudy. We only really stopped a few times, to have two restrooms stops, and to fill up our water bottles at a drinking fountain. We ran from Jacque’s house in Lansing to East Lansing, and up to Sparty near the football stadium. We were going to go up and touch Sparty, but there was a wedding party taking pictures there, and well, we thought it would be rude to have two sweaty people in the background of their pictures. We were just trying to be nice.

At about mile 11, my thighs started tightening up and feeling stiff. My longest run before this was 11 miles, so my body was wondering what the heck I was doing. The soreness stayed for the next 5 miles. I was on autopilot for the last two miles, just running behind Trevor, trying to keep up. Nothing on my body really hurt, but my legs were just sore and tired. Well, I am too tired to write more, so I am off to bed to rest up for next weeks training.

I think I will take several months off from running after the marathon on 10/18th. But until then, happy running!

Jen

Here is a pic after Rachel and I finished the Crim last week.

Today’s run was 11 miles. We ran it in 1 hour 56 minutes. We ran most of the run, but did have 2 walking breaks. We started in Novi at Novi Rd and 14mile, and ran over to Walled Lake, and ran around the lake and back. It was pretty good run; here are my highlights:

~Ran with Rachel and Neal. It is great to run with others who have similar goals, because when I get tired and I see them still going, I will keep going. If I was by myself, I would have stopped and walked . A lot.
~It was very humid already at 6:15 am when we started our run. And I would not  admit it if they asked me, but I was very doubtful that I could do this run in the heat. Thankfully, there were some fun sprinklers that we ran through in the 1st few miles, and then around mile 4, it started raining. It felt wonderful and kept my body temp down. Rachel may have been right, God was listening to our prayers for relief and turned on the big sprinkler. Thank you to the woman upstairs!

~Things we saw on this run that when I am not running I don’t take time to look at: a beautiful rainbow, a crain walking along the shoreline, a cute little yellow cottage that looked like a little house you would see in Germany, that had yellow flowers along the roof.

Overall: good run. I am glad we are in the double digits and 2 months left until the marathon. Then I can relax and hopefully start a family. All this running is really my preparation for having kids. I want to be in the best shape and be as healthy as I can when we start having kids, and if we are blessed with a baby after the marathon, that would be great!  If I can wake up at 4am to go do a run, I can do anything right? Rachel, who has 3 kids and is still training, is my inspiration.

Looking forward to the 12 next week! ~Jen~

Time to sleep. *Jen*

Yesterday was my 1st early morning run. I have run at 7am, even 6am, before. But yesterday I was out the door at 5:20am. It was pitch black outside. I was all excited for this run. I had a little flashing light that I hooked to my water purse (water bottle belt that goes around my waist) that I had received for running in the Howell Fantasy of lights a few years ago.  It comes in handy so that cars can see me coming. I even had a shirt that had a few reflector strips on it. However, I did not realize just how dark it was going to be. I ran down the main street in my new neighborhood, and I thought there were street lights down that street, but there weren’t. I debated going back home, but I had already eaten a GU Energy Gel, and I was not about to waste it.

I turned off my IPOD so that I could listen to what was going on around me, and I held my pepper spray firmly in my hand. I could not see more than 5-10 feet in front me, but I figured I would hear if someone was coming. Then out of the blue, there is another runner about 15 feet from me coming from the opposite direction. I had not heard or seen him coming. It scared me at first, and I am pretty sure I raised the pepper spray at him, but he just said good morning and kept running. Not 2 minutes later I ran by another runner. He was running on the other side of the grass median in the road. He was too far to say good morning, but I got a warm fuzzy feeling knowing that I was in a neighborhood of runners.  That was at 5:30, but around 6am I saw a few more people running.

I saw the sun come up that morning on my run, and everything was so peaceful. I looked around at all the houses and thought about how all those people were currently resting, but in a few hours there will be a surge of energy and people will start getting ready for work, feeding their kids, walking their dogs. I thought about how each house was going to have something going on in just a few hours, and how most of them will not experience the peaceful quiet of the morning. I silently said a little prayer that all the houses I was running by would have a full and exciting day ahead of them. (I am emotional and cheesy in the early mornings.)

6 miles and 2 energy gels later, I was home cooking breakfast for my husband. I never make breakfast for my husband. He said that I must be on a runners high, and I guess I was. It’s a good feeling.

Last Sunday was our first 8 mile run. I ran with Rachel and our friend’s husband Neal. We ran at Kensington Metropark in Milford MI. It’s one of my favorite places to run, and the paved trail around the lake really can’t be beat. It is the 1st time ever that I completed the whole 8 mile path, and we did it in a pretty good time. It was great to have other people to run with because they kept me going. This Sunday we will be doing our first 10 mile run. I am looking to the feeling I’ll have after finishing. Maybe I will even make my husband breakfast.

Keep moving! ~Jen~