Vermont Marathon

After hitting the snooze button repeatedly for an hour, I finally got up and got ready for the race. I had gone back and forth a number of times about whether I should actually run the race or not. I was undertrained and I had no one coming to support me, which was a big difference from my first marathon. But I knew I would feel like shit if I didn't go, so I made the 45 minute drive to Vermont. Once I was at the starting line, I was fine. Not at all nervous. It just felt like I was running another training run. I wasn't concerned about my time. I just wanted to get a nice, long run in. I put my earbuds in and took off slow and steady. I was not about to make the mistake of going out too fast again. I never look at the course map before I run a race. I'm not sure why. I just like to be surprised I guess. Surprise! This marathon was all hills! Part of it was on a freaking mountain! A lot of it was on trails, which my poor ankles were not used to. The parts on the road were on busy streets and a little dangerous, but overall the course was beautiful. Is there any place in Vermont that isn't beautiful? Maybe I could have appreciated that beauty more if I wasn't running with excruciating pain in my right foot. I don't know what I did to it, but I was in rough shape early on in the race. Every time my right foot hit the ground, I wanted to cry, which was about every half second. I had to run on the outside of my foot just to make it bearable, which I'm pretty sure caused some more damage. I can't imagine what I looked like as I was running with this weird limp trying to put as little pressure as possible on my foot. I didn't care either. I was on a mission to reach that finish line. To make things a little more miserable, it was raining the whole time. The weird part was that I wasn't actually miserable. I was cold and wet and in a lot of pain, but I felt strong knowing that I was going to finish the race anyway. I can handle pain, but I can't handle failure. I just kept pushing forward. Occasionally, I would remind myself to "enjoy the ride" because I have a tendency to only focus on the finish line. And that goes for all aspects of my life, but I am working on it. I ended up crossing the finish line at 4:38:28, which was very shocking considering my injury and the difficulty of the course. It's still not a great time, but it is an improvement  from my last marathon. But more than that, I felt pretty bad ass that I didn't quit when most people would have!