This past weekend, we headed down to Washington DC so I could run in the National Half Marathon with my good friends Catlin, Natalie, and Christy. The drive down wasn't my or Ryan's favorite....3.5 hours transformed into 6ish since we had to stop 3 times to feed Landon. We made it to the hotel, a ritzy Hilton, in time for dinner. Of course we couldn't afford the food at the hotel, so Ryan headed out to grab some for us. Long story short, he came back with a sandwich for him and a salad I couldn't eat because they forgot to take the crumbled blue cheese off. Hah. The poor boys were going to get Burger King on his way back, but it was closed. Luckily we managed to put together some sort of meal from our snacks and hit the bed. Well, Ryan and I did. Carter was in a hotel crib, Josh on the floor, and Landon on a bouncer. I'm sure the hotel people were impressed with how high class we were!
I was a little bit nervous about running, because I had gotten sick a couple days before with a cough/slight fever. Luckily the days were a bit better than the nights, so I felt somewhat okay, hah, the day of the race. The girls and I met in the lobby at six and headed out to catch the subway, which opened an hour early at 6am for the day of the race (definitely not New York!). Well, turns out that we chose two of the subway stations that weren't open at 6am. It was so stressful running to a subway (after my lovely map sent us in the wrong direction) to find it closed and the one after that closed...luckily we happened upon some other runners who showed us the one station that was open-right across the street. We ran on, all stressed out, Natalie in particular. Come to find out she didn't know we had a timing chip! Hah, once she realized our time would start once we crossed the starting line and not before, she relaxed a bit. I however, had some work to do. I got out my disposable nursing pump that I had begged off of the hospital the day before and pumped, using Christy's jacket as a shield, until we made it to our stop. Such a nice memory, let me tell you.We made it to the starting point a bit after they started the race, but because there were about 16,000 people running the race, we were just fine to wait and hop in when we felt like it. Christy, Catlin, and I stayed together while Natalie ran ahead. Christy stayed with us for about 3 miles, but she couldn't stay with our 10 min pace--she kept running faster. She was like a little magnet being pulled along with the rest of the crowd. At first we kept calling her back because she wanted us to pace her, but we finally gave up and let her go. Catlin and I had a blast. In fact, around mile 8, Catlin was close to bursting out in song. She was talking talking talking about how wonderful everything was and how happy she was. It was pretty funny, because usually she's not a big talker, but she couldn't stop. It reminded me of when I ran the marathon with Ryan, I was gibbering on. Accomplishing such a big goal like a marathon or half and feeling good physically while running it can really lead to moments of euphoria, I don't know how else to describe it.
Around mile 11, our energy started slowing (looking back we should've taken some more glucogel), but we pushed through it, and around mile 12, we were only passed once while we were passing the other people. The end was my favorite, though. We were really pushing hard to finish strong. About 100 yards from the finish, Catlin called out, "Help me, Katie!" (I thought it was pretty amazing that she would ask for help when she felt she needed it). I got right next to her and "strongly encouraged" her to, "Push it! Push it! Beat this guy! You've got it!" We ran together over the finish line, and I've never had such an emotional finish. We were both near tears. We had run together the whole time, and we finished strong, together. We had three goals: First, to finish; second, to run it in 2:45; third (our ultimate goal), to run it in 2:30. We were so happy to find out we ran it just under 2:20! I loved running the race. It was the first race for all of us but me. They all did so well, Christy and Natalie coming in at 2:08 and 2:09 respectively.
After the race we zipped back to the hotel, I showered, and we left for home. The ride back took us as long as the ride to. Ryan was a rockstar. He was so supportive, and he watched the kids with out complaint, even though his day included trying to feed a baby a bottle with little luck, bundling the kids up and taking them all on the subway in time to be at the finish line, and then driving for 6 hours to get home. Honestly he was so great.
I know that's a long story, but it was such a good experience. It's reminded me that we're all capable of more than we think we are, and that often, we have the ability, we just have to have faith in ourselves that we can do it.
Now comes training for the Provo marathon June 11th. My awesome sister-in-law Nikki is going to run it with me. I've promised Ryan that I'll never run past 9am when he's home, since my last marathon training took over our lives...should be interesting!
