First Marathon RR- Disney (Read 324 times)

First let me say that last March the thought of running a marathon sounded like a good idea. I mean why wouldn' it? I'd be coming off a first year race season that included 5k's, 10k's, 3 half marathons, 3 legs of a 200 mile relay, a sprint, oly, and 70.3 triathlons. I will be in the best shape of my life! Yeah, well, not so much. My training really dwindled after October. ( I hate cold weather and snow! ) In Dec. I came up with a right knee issue that was new to me. That being said.. Wow,I have never seen so many people gathered in one spot. What a huge start. I've been told 22 thousand racers were there but the stats for the marathon show 14,949 finished. My biggest races prior to this were maybe 2000. DW and I were in pretty far back in the start, coral G. It took like 8 minutes just to cross the start line after the gun. We started off fairly slow as it was so crowded and I wasn't a mile in before I had to run off to the trees for a "pit stop". By mile 3 my knee started hurting. I picked up my pace a little and the pain eased up a bit. From mile 11 on the knee thing was really acting up and I found myself walking the water stations. This made it all the more painful to start up again. Mile 15 I hit the "green houses" and I think this is where DW passed me. Never knew it til the finish. At any rate, I stopped at every aid station for Bio-freeze and tylenol, walked a few short distances when needed, but did run consistently from mile 22 throught he finish. I never felt like I bonked or hit the wall, nutrition and fueling were dead on, cardio was steady. I mean I felt great in every way but orthopedically. That knee killed me all day. End result is I finished with a 5:08, my DW finished with 5:00 even. Going in I had three times in my head. 4:00 based on two sub 2hr halfs. (A dream time.) 4:30 as a more realistic dream time. and 5:00 as a probable first time time. So, I am very happy with my first marathon nd had a GREAT time. We stayed til Thursday and went to some of the parks with friends and their children. came home to more snow and frigid temps. Will definatly do this race next year!