Danielle's Marathon

Park City Marathon 2009

A couple of weeks ago I ran the Park City marathon. I was a little nervous about it since this was my first attempt at 26.2 miles after having kids. But, you will all be relieved to know that I survived (yay!) and that about 24.2 miles of it were even enjoyable.

I ran it with my older sister, Doreen, and let me tell you, running a marathon with someone is soooo much better than doing it alone. We had a ton of fun, even incapacitating ourselves with giggles around mile 17. Since Park City is a very hilly course (keep that fact in mind when you read my time) we had agreed beforehand that we'd listen to our iPods on the uphill sections, and talk or whatever when it was level. Well, that plan worked well until Mile 3 when my iPod died (it had been knocking at death's door for a few weeks, but I hoped it would hold out. No such luck.) However, Doreen had a freakishly long cord on her earphones, so yes, we shared earphones and listened to the same music for much of the run. We got several amused comments about it, and while we wouldn't have planned to do that, it did end up working out rather well.

Another unplanned for circumstance was starting the marathon 7 minutes behind everyone else (oops). We were just chillin' in line for the port-a-potties, with tons of other participants around when I heard someone say something about it being 6:28. Well, the race started at 6:30, we weren't near the starting line, and we still had to run back to the car to drop off our stuff. It turns out all the people in line with us were running the half-marathon, which started later. Again, oops. So, I think we actually ran an extra half mile before we officially started the marathon. When we did cross the starting line (they had to restart the counter for us) it took almost a mile before we caught up to any of the other runners. On the plus side, every time we passed someone on the course it was like a bonus, because we were already beating them by seven minutes.

Anyway, here I am about to cross the finish line. The last couple of miles were not fabulous for me. It was hot, I felt sick, and it was all I could do to keep going at a glacial pace. Doreen, however, being Super Woman, had boundless energy, and pestered me with her chipperness until I finally told her to go ahead and leave me behind once the finish line was in sight. Thus, she beat me by 10 seconds. So, she placed 10th in our division and I placed 11th, with a time of 4 hours, 29 minutes and 50 seconds. My PR was my first time running the St. George marathon, with a time of 3 hours and 45 minutes. This course was significantly more challenging, so I'm actually quite proud of my time.
Anyway, in the above picture I'm not looking my best (having just run for four and a half solid hours), so I wanted to include this picture as a reminder that, normally, running makes me happy.
Doreen and I put in an encore performance at the Peach Days 10k this weekend. This time she seriously kicked my butt, but I still finished with a time of 56:12, so not bad.