The Kansas City Marathon has come and gone and I survived.

My training did not exactly go as planned though - I took a break for a couple weeks in July around my Aunt Bette’s funeral and in September I developed some tendonitis in my right foot that prevented me from running more than 2-3 miles at a time.  Luckily my team was nice enough to give me the first leg of the race, a whopping 3.3 miles, so I didn’t feel too stressed about my lack of preparation.

I woke up at 5:45 am on race day hating myself (just a little bit) for agreeing to do this.  It was early, cold and rainy and I don’t really enjoy running that much.  As I was driving to Crown Center to meet the rest of my team the rain started pouring down and I just about burst into tears.  I was already nervous about running in the cold but I was NOT AT ALL prepared to run in the rain - I’m not that hard core.  As Dustin later told me, the “storm system” was a speck on the weather map so luckily as quickly as it started, it stopped.

I met up with Team Warren around 6:40 to pick up my bib, time chip and to meet the woman I’d be exchanging with.  We also took some time for a photo op (from left: Anette, Me, Elaine, Aaron (my brother).  Elaine’s husband is the fifth team member but is dropping their kids off at the baby sitter’s.)

After the photo I was off to find safety pins to attach my bib and to find the right pace to start the race.  The news said there were about 10,000 people there so soon after I made it to the marathon pace teams I decided to stop fighting the crowd - I’m not that fast anyway and I was past the walkers so I figured it wasn’t worth the effort to move up further.

The race started at 7 am, just north of Pershing heading north on Grand.  I knew there were a lot of people there but as I crossed the start line and everyone spread out, there were people as far as I could see headed up the hill in front of me.  I don’t consider myself an emotional person but I could feel my eyes welling up again as I took in this image.  For a moment I wished I had a camera because it was so awesome and so inspiring and I was so proud to be a part of that - even if I was only running 3.3 miles.

I felt fantastic as I ran!  As I was approaching the 3 mile marker I felt like I wanted to keep going, which was good because I still had to face what is probably the steepest hill of the race - the hill from Union Station up to Liberty Memorial.  For those of you not familiar with this hill, it’s about a 100 foot change in elevation in less than a half mile.  It took all I had left to make it up this hill.  I even tried to walk for a few seconds but it didn’t really make it any easier.

The plan for the rest of the day was to meet back at the finish to cheer Aaron on, but since my team still had 23 miles to run I figured I’d go home to eat breakfast and take a power nap.  On a normal day it would take me 10-15 minutes to get home, but after 45 minutes of trying to get around the marathon I gave up, went to Starbucks and headed back to Crown Center.  I wondered around by myself for about an hour before meeting up with Elaine after she finished her leg.  Together we watched her parents finish their SECOND half marathon together with an amazing walking time of 3 hours, 45 minutes, then the four of us waited for my brother.  After seeing other relay teams finish together Elaine and I decided we’d run into the finish line with Aaron but when we popped out of the crowd Aaron says “I’ll race you!” and sprinted away.  NOT what either of us expected, although in hind sight I’m not surprised - that’s TOTALLY my brother!

Our team finished in 51st place out of 107 teams with at time of 4:17:22, 9:50 mile pace.

From left: Jeff, Elaine, Aaron, Me

To be honest I’m actually quite disappointed in my split but it probably explains why I was feeling so fantastic at the time.  I felt like I was going at my normal pace and I was passing people the whole time but I figure that’s probably because I started with a slower pace group.  In the end, it was probably a good thing because I was not at all prepared for that hill.  I can’t imagine feeling how I normally do when I run and then having to face that hill.

With that said, the whole day inspired me to do better - to run further and faster.  Some day I’d love to do a marathon all on my own, but I have to work on finding a passion for running that I don’t currently have.  I’ll do what I can to keep running on my own and to increase my milage using the feelings I had at the marathon as my motivation for as long as I can.  But I’d also like to join a training team because it was evident to me on Saturday that I do well drawing from the motivation of others.