2012 Marine Corps Marathon 3:26:41 (VIRGINIA)

The Marine Corps Marathon would satisfy the “last” of many things.  It would be my 6^th and final marathon of 2012. It would also be the last of my “must do” marathon list – when I started this journey I knew there would be a fair chance of my not finishing all 50 so I tried to front load my list with the marathons I *knew* I wanted to run someday.  It would be the last marathon in a city where I or my husband had a family member...I’ll miss having an excuse to visit family.

 

I knew I was running on fumes.  The two marathons (Flagstaff and Findlay) in the previous five weeks were about the only work I had done.  Factor in the three week taper going into those and it had been quite a while since I had seriously trained. I can’t remember the last time I lifted a weight, maybe mid-September? I could see it in my body - my core muscles non-existent, my quads not as cut – I was not feeling particularly confident.

 

Red White & Blue 26.2 Marathon (OHIO)

My Ohio marathon will go down as my “best worst idea.”  I found out about a year ago that I would be in Columbus, Ohio for my cousin Jenny’s wedding.  I knew that I needed to do a marathon in Ohio so once the wedding date was set, I began looking for a marathon a reasonable distance from Columbus.  I found the Red White and Blue 26.2 in Findlay, OH being held the morning after the wedding.  Findlay is about 90 miles away from Columbus so I planned to drive out there in the wee hours. It would be a tight schedule as we were also flying back to Seattle that afternoon.  The goal was to just get it done so I tried not to dwell on the less-than-optimal conditions.

 

Flagstaff really beat me up and I really could have used more than two weeks to recover.  With that said, I didn’t feel that bad.  Nonetheless my head wasn’t in a great place for this race.  I was really excited about seeing my extended family at the wedding and I hadn’t factored in how much I would not want to leave for the marathon.  It meant I would miss brunch and my last chance to see most before they headed home. By Saturday night I was giving myself a 50/50 chance of bailing.  Coming from a family of mostly non-athletes, I felt like a fool saying, “yeah, I’m getting up in a few hours to drive to Findlay and run a marathon.” “You see it makes sense because I’m trying to run the 50 states and I’m in Ohio so it would be stupid not to.” “Right?” “huh?” “What’s wrong with you?”