We Did It Anyway!

So the Myrtle Beach City Council may have decided to cancel the marathon, but that didn't stop hundreds and hundreds of runners from hitting the streets & doing it anyway. All day long there were people running all over town. Our group decided we were going to do it anyway as well. But we didn't go out at 6:30 am. We figured if they weren't giving us our medals, we might as well wait for it to warm up a little before beginning.
Our group consisted of Me, Lindsey, Amelia, Heather, Wendy, Mollie & Jason. (Jason is my brother-in-law, he's married to my sister, Shiloh. Heather, Amelia & Mollie are his sisters, Lindsey is Heather's friend & Wendy is Jason's aunt.) Wendy, Mollie & Jason were signed up for the full marathon while the rest of us were signed up for the half. Jason's dad, Mike, was also signed up for the half, but he didn't make out with us.

As you can tell by our attire, I was the only one who had been training in cold weather. The rest of them live in North & South Carolina so it was frigid for them. Jason was proudly showing off his new cold gear tights!

Packing Jason's butt. Ummm...I mean fanny pack.

This is when we found out that they were going to give us our medals anyway. (I mean really what were they going to do with 10,000 race medals?)

A little pre-run fun!

Our Support Team! That's Grant, Cindy Sue (mom) & Travis, of course. Grant is Mollie's husband and he spent the entire day driving his van around, parking every 2-3 miles along our route so that we could get water, power bars & other necessities since the race water stations weren't in operation. Grant was seriously our superman! We couldn't have done it without him!

We started right around 11:00am, it was already 40 degrees so the snow was melting fast.

Travis's job was to drive while mom stuck her head and camera out the window like a dog & took pictures.

We managed to stick together pretty well for about the first 3 miles. After that it was each runner for themselves. But we expected that to happen. It's vital to run a comfortable pace for you because you'll run out of gas if you go too fast & you risk injury if you go too slowly. So we all found a good pace and stuck with it.

I ran the first 5 miles faster than I've ever done it before. It felt fantastic. I loved being at sea level. Plus it was warming up and felt absolutely amazing. By mile 7 I really found my groove and somehow managed to pull ahead of everyone. At our 9 mile water stop I was heading out by the time everyone else started to arrive. At mile 11 I was really feeling amazing. I was killing it! I waited at the stop for about 2 minutes while I walked and had my water, but I was so far ahead no one else even showed up by the time I took off.

It was at about 12.5 that my right leg started cramping. I've never cramped up before on a long run, but it didn't feel so bad that I felt like I should stop, so I just kept powering through. By the time I met up with my family I'd actually run about 13.3 instead of 13.1 & I knew I was going to be aching! But when I stopped my watch, I had run it in 2 hours 57 minutes and 2 seconds. And I didn't stop my watch at water stops or anything, so that was a pretty accurate time. I was really impressed with myself because I only walked while I was drinking my water. I didn't walk at all along the route. The bad news is, I've pulled a calf muscle, so for the rest of yesterday and all of today I can't walk! Seriously it hurts so bad to put weight on it that my 85 year old grandmother is moving faster than I am.

I don't know how far behind me Amelia finished. I visited with my mom & sister for a few minutes, and then I got in the car with my husband and son and we went in search of my medal while Cindy Sue & Cami waited for the others.

Heather was shortly behind Amelia & boy was she happy to be done. As it turns out, they didn't wait for Lindsey because she ended up going with Mike & Dru (Jason's parents.)

And yes, I got my medal! As I limped over the guy he said, "I can tell you ran today!" But he just smiled and gave me a medal! I was barely able to walk & looked very scary, but still felt great!

That night the 30 of us (which included 15 children ages 9 & under) had a big celebration dinner in one of the hotel suites.

This is me snuggling 3 week old Ransom. Travis says I look really old in this picture. I think I just look like I've run 13 miles and haven't put on any make-up.

My sisters Cami & Shiloh decided we needed trophies since we didn't get an official medal ceremony at the race! Nothing says "Way to Go!" Like a tin foil man on a greasy pizza box!

Yes, we all survived! And I for one, plan on doing it again. This time for real!