these poor little piggies...

Here is me and Bobby at the end of the philadelphia marathon looking very happy (because it's over!).  Although it may have been my big idea to go run a full marathon, i'll still tell my brother it was his idea that we go run at all.  Last xmas he said if i ever wanted to run, he'd do an event with me & I held him to it with the San Jose Half Marathon & the Philly full  Marathon this year...both of which he kicked my butt at!

I think I made two critical mistakes.  The first was bringing my phone along with me in my water bottle belt.  it was the first time i had ever done that and it ended up rubbing up against my lower back the whole run.  not enough where i could tell what was going on while i was running, but enough that i'm bruised today and wondering if it had anything to do with the pain in my knees.  The second mistake was not pulling off at the half.  I think running a full marathon is better suited for someone who has been running for years than someone who has cardio fitness from other sports and takes a few months to get to the finish line.  it's easy to run too fast early because of the crowd and the excitement and you aren't breathing hard so you keep pushing.  i think my first 7 miles were pretty fast, then i waited in line for 20+ minutes to use the potty around west philly and never really got my momentum going again after that. 

a bit into the second leg of the full my knees were really killing me so i decided to sort of speed walk.  i had a really good pace going until that started to hurt too much too.  then i think my legs weren't really working right at all because people kept asking if i was cramping or i wanted to SAG in :-(  i think my legs sort of had that pony like weird trot motion going on because my IT Bands hurt causing my butt and outer knees to throb with ever step. ugh, running is just a little bit of plain old crazy.

at the finish line there was a lady with a banner that said "If it was easy, everyone would do it."  right on lady!  somehow i never did find the lady who at 3 miles had a sign declaring "hey fatties, we have cake at the finish line."  my other favorite part of the race (other than going down memory lane and remembering all sorts of stuff i had forgotten about like places and random things i had done with friends,) was having my name on my bib and the crowd cheering me on my name. how cool is that?!?

today i'm saying never again and wondering how i'm ever going to make it through the full marathon after the 2.4 mile swim and the 112 mile bike ride of Canada Ironman in August next year.  I think it's back to focusing on some shorter runs for awhile and enjoying those and getting the knee pain thing sorted out. 

who wants to run a half in a few months when i've forgotten about how much my feet and legs hurt yesterday and today?