Don’t worry about the blog it continues in another form (http:\/\/www.apolonio.com\/blog<\/a>)<\/p>\n I have so much more to accomplish and there are so many supportive people, so I can’t quit now.<\/p>\n Anyway back to the Marathon,\u00a0 you can see from my last post how anxious I was.\u00a0 Although the physical preparation was started months ago, there was some mental and final prep things to do.<\/p>\n First off, I wanted to make sure my run was not stopped by a bowel movement (yeah gross but true), so I was extremely careful in what I ate over the past few days.<\/p>\n I wanted to make sure I was hydrated for the run so I drank a lot of fluids throughout the week, unfortunately I drank too late when I got up this morning, so when I got to the starting line I had to pee bad.\u00a0 Fortunately, the lines were still relatively short (still farking long), and was able to get in there before the start.<\/p>\n I packed up my goodie bag and placed it in the good hands of the UPS drivers and hoped to see it again in a few hours.<\/p>\n Walking around a little helped alleviate the jitters, at 6:45 I drank my 5 hour energy drink.\u00a0 Which may have been too early, because I started to understand the corral system.\u00a0 There were about 39 sections called corrals and each section started about a minute or two after the one before it.\u00a0 So by the time I hit the start line, nearly an hour went by.\u00a0 We finally started and I pressed “start” on my watch before crossing the start line.<\/p>\n Start Line 2010<\/p><\/div>\n I was worried that my “fans” were going to leave thinking they did not see me, in a way this had a side effect of getting me to run faster.<\/p>\n The first mile marker was reached in about 10 minutes, I was very surprised at this pace, maybe it was a mix of the adrenaline and the level road that allowed me to run this quick.<\/p>\n I skipped the first watering holes, because I felt well hydrated, I am not sure if this contributed to degradation in my speed towards the end.<\/p>\n The crowds started thinning out and I noticed I was seeing numbers from the corral groups ahead of me, so I was hoping to catch up to my coworker Alan.<\/p>\n While I was hitting around the 2 and 3 mile marker I noticed a familiar face keeps zipping by.\u00a0 I’ll call her “J”,we were running nearly an identical pace.\u00a0 Which in a way was good because I needed a “pacer”.<\/p>\n As I hit mile 5, I started to look for my “fans”, lo and behold, there they were.<\/p>\n It was the morale boost I needed.\u00a0\u00a0 As I passed them I bid them hello and goodbye in the space of about 2 seconds, but that was all that I needed.<\/p>\n To my surprise another group of “fans” were looking out for me.\u00a0 That was a huge bonus and I was able to keep up the pace.<\/p>\n At about mile 8 I felt what was starting to be cramps in my toes, so I decided to get my first drink of this race’s version of gatorade.\u00a0 I was starting to doubt my strategy of passing on water.\u00a0 Also, water is pretty hard to drink from a cup when you are running.<\/p>\n Mile 9 was interesting, we started going up a hill and merged from a nice wide street to a narrow bike pathway.\u00a0 This is the only time I walked during the race, not because I wanted to, but because it was just way too congested to run.<\/p>\n I came out of the congestion into the Mount Baker Tunnel, and I lost a great deal of momentum.\u00a0 Also the cramping was more evident.<\/p>\n After a few I appeared out of the tunnel and claimed Hallelujah, its all downhill from here.<\/p>\n Not true… after a few hundred yards I came across another steep incline.<\/p>\n Sadly, this was not the last of the hills either.<\/p>\n At this point, the mile markers felt farther and farther apart.\u00a0 But as I hit mile 11, I was thinking, “This is less than a 4+”.<\/p>\n I saw mile 12 downtown and in my mind I thought “this is a simple 1 lap around RTC” but cramping started setting in more frequently, if I tried to to kick and lift my legs for more speed my toes would cramp.<\/p>\n At mile 12.5 the last song of my long playlist ended.\u00a0 But instead of looking for a new playlist I dropped the earbuds and drove on.<\/p>\n It was heartening to see the 26 mile marker for the Full Marathoners.\u00a0 The math in my head said I only had .1 miles to go, but alas, their ending route was different from the 1\/2 marathoners so it was longer then I thought.<\/p>\n At long last I saw the finish line, and found some gas left in the tank.\u00a0 I checked my watch and saw that if I pushed, I could finish within 2 1\/2 hours.<\/p>\n I did.<\/p>\n As a slowed down after the finish line I pressed “stop”.\u00a0 It stopped at exactly 2:30.00, so I knew that I had a good chance of beating 2 1\/2 since I pressed start before passing the start line and stop after passing the finish time.<\/p>\n Exactly 2:30.00<\/p><\/div>\n When I crossed the finish line, it was so emotionally overwhelming, not that I finished a 1\/2 marathon, but that all the training for the past year, from struggling to run a 1\/2 mile got me through this run in a time I absolutely did not expect.<\/p>\n After the run, I met up with my buddies at work, we all finished 13.1 that day.\u00a0 I would post pictures but I feel the need to ask their permission first.\u00a0 But it was all good.<\/p>\n I lost my beer ticket, so I thought it was fate for me not to drink, but I nice lady gave me hers, so I took it as a sign that it was OK.\u00a0 I had my beer.<\/p>\n I could not find Alan, but afterwards I did see on the results web page that he completed the race as well.<\/p>\n As for “J”, she beat me by a couple seconds…. maybe next year \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n For me, I can say I beat 2:30, but here is a screen capture as proof<\/p>\n My Pace Half Marathon 2010<\/p><\/div>\n My Time Half Marathon 2010<\/p><\/div>\n As a final note, yeah mostly water but still Makes it a 50lb weight loss<\/p>\n Weight: 244.8<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Well today was awesome, I finished that 1\/2 marathon that I have been training oh so long for. What an incredible emotional run, when I crossed that finish line I covered my eyes so no one would see me cry. … Continue reading ![\"Start](\"http:\/\/www.lazyplayer.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/Start-Line.jpg\" "\\"Start")
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