Monday, May 12, 2008

The Marathon

I have mentioned my marathon training before on the blog...so I must include the finish to all of that training. A few weeks ago I ran the Nashville Country Music Marathon with my husband and several other relatives. We had a great time visiting Nashville and a great time running. Everyone came home with a PR (that's runner lingo for personal record - best time). My husband and I finished the race in 4 hours, 26 minutes, 30 seconds (his official time was 4:26:31, so I really beat him by 1 second).
This marathon was large as far as marathons go...5,000 running the full and 25,000 running the half-marathon. To help deal with all of those people, they have corral starts. The elite runners get to start first, then the next fastest runners, and on down the line. We were in corral 10 of 31 and it took us 17 minutes to cross the start line. Here is a photo of our corral starting. (photos courtesy Jonathan Gabis)
I'm on the right (number 10211) with Jon right behind me and Stephanie right behind him. My dad is in the bright green shirt, getting ready to hand us jelly beans (Jelly Belly Sport Beans - the only way to make it through a marathon). I think this is at about mile 18 or 19.
My hubby taking the beans.
The group of runners. Those of us with black ribbon medals ran the full marathon and those with red ribbons ran the half. The pink signs my mom made to cheer us on. Those infamous pink signs have been to several marathons now and are a blessing to see when you are out on the course. My dad was holding one up near the finish and we could see it a good quarter mile away. It gives you a little boost of energy and keeps you going, although, my husband did complain that it seamed like it was never getting any closer.
Jon and I did have a pink sign, but it was with one of our cheerleaders at the time of the photo. Jeremy registered to run at the last minute, so we had to make an impromptu sign.
You can see more photos at http://www.asiphoto.com/ So, who's with us for the next one?

4 comments:

Barb Trimble said...

Congrats on finishing another marathon! A huge accomplishment.

neysaruhl said...

If you run the Pig next year, I'll try and get pictures of you - but I'm leaving the running to you and Jon!
I am so glad you got some photos!

Congratulations!

Lindsey said...

Emily and I are thinking of this marathon next year. How does it compare to the Pig. Easier/flatter/etc???? Any info you have would be appreciated!!!!
Thanks for all of your encouragement during our training and congratulations on your MARATHON!

KMP said...

Hey Lindsey-
Overall I would say the pig is better than Nashville. It was a great experience to do a marathon in another city, and a bonus that it was on Saturday. Things I didn't like about Nashville: you get a regular cotton t-shirt and that's it for the goodie bag; the course has three out-and-back parts to it, so you get to see the people an hour ahead of you on three different parts of the course; they use red Accelerade; and you get to run through two housing projects.
The start of the race near Vanderbilt is very nice, and they are pretty well organized with the start, but the first half is pretty crowded. There are more hills than I expected and they are scattered throughout the course - none of them are very bad though.

I'll try to email you in case you don't see the comment here. Good luck with Chicago and any future marathons - you are officially addicted!