| Check out Bermuda |
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| (this was really on the way home) |
Friday, November 15, 2002
Have a Bermuda-ful Day!
We left Philadelphia on a 9:30 flight and arrived in Bermuda on Friday at about 12:30 Bermuda time (that's one hour ahead of the east coast). The airport was bustling since three planes full of marathon participants had just arrived. Our flight, plus another carrying some Team In Training people and a Canadian flight carrying a rowdy bunch of Team Diabetes Canada walkers all were in customs at the same time.
It took about a half hour to clear customs and then we moved outside to the extraordinarily efficient ground transportation area. There were Bermudian airport workers holding signs for Team In Training, Joints in Motion, and Team Diabetes and they were so eager to get you into a taxi you barely had time to think before you were on the way to the hotel. Most of us were wearing t-shirts or jackets from our organizations so the Bermudians knew where we needed to go even before we did. Brian & I threw a slight monkey wrench into the works because we weren't taking the official TNT shuttle so we had to find our own taxi. At first we were worried because so many seemed committed to taking the groups -- but it only took us a second to find a nice lady in an engineer hat to take us to the hotel. The ride took about a half hour and cost just about $25. (For those of you wondering, the exchange rate is 1 for 1 and you can use American money everywhere.)
The cab ride was my first taste of the Bermuda roads --- they are skinny, twisty turny things that are just barely wide enough for two cars. In many places they're lined by high walls that seem to be carved from coral. I think I have some pictures from the course that I can post to show what I mean. The good thing is that the speed limit is only 20 so nothing is too scary.
| The Front of the Hotel |
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| Fairmont Hamilton Princess |
The Princess Hotel is just beautiful - at least on the outside and in the lobby area. The rooms aren't quite as spectacular and ours had a few problems (wait until you see the pictures of the drinking water) but overall we really liked the hotel. They have nice pools, absolutely fantastic service, and they're walking distance from everything in town so it's a great place to stay.
Check-in was crowded but it went smoothly. Hotel staff was there to hand out welcome packets from Team In Training and they were all very friendly and helpful. Unfortunately, the welcome packets weren't that great. Oh -- that's a little harsh. They had all the information we needed about the pasta party, expo and victory party and they even clued us in about pre-race meals and how to get a massage when it was all over. The only thing it didn't include was what we wanted the most --- a race map.
By the time we were settled into the room it was close to 3pm and we were starving. We decided to take a walk into Hamilton to find some lunch and here's where our love affair with Bermuda ended. You see, in Bermuda you can't eat lunch at three o'clock. You can only have afternoon tea. And afternoon tea really isn't enough food when you've been up since 5am and haven't had much to eat except the tiny bag of pretzels from the airplane. Thank-god we had some Clif bars stashed away or we'd have been in big trouble!
We got shut out of most restaurants due to the afternoon tea problem and we wound up eating at this completely gross looking lunch counter in a mall. It was kind of funny since it sold cheesesteaks and Herr's potato chips. Anyway, we ate with the locals and had surprisingly good food. (A cheeseburger for me and a gyro for Brian plus some good french fries). We got to see an odd slice of Bermuda folks in there too including a chatty man drinking tea and wearing a furry deer skin vest.
We spent the afternoon walking around Hamilton and then went out for dinner at a little place near the hotel called Monty's. Dinner was nice, and I hate to say that because Monty's was a particular thorn in our side during our afternoon tea debacle. We had almost as much trouble finding a place for dinner as we did for lunch. We had an outdated tour book for Bermuda and we walked all over trying to find a restaurant that no longer existed. When we finally found it's former location it had been replaced with a fancy place called Baracuda. I couldn't bring myself to enter that place because they were charging $40 for a crab cake. I love crab cakes but nothing can be that good!
I had sort of a super-snit during the hunt for dinner. Brian was nice about it considering how cranky I was. I think this was partly because I was tired but more because I was just nervous and on edge about the marathon.
| Yikes! |
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| This is our drinking water! |
Saturday, November 16, 2002
Scary water, Celebrity Sightings, Fabulous Beaches & Amazing Stories
We woke up on Saturday and ordered a room service breakfast. I had a fantastic Gouda & Ham omlette with toast and coffee and Brian got strawberry pancakes and oatmeal. Absolutely delicious. It almost made up for the nasty brown water we found in the shower and sink. It was totally sickening but at least it was gone by the time we got back from the beach.
We were planning on going to the beach on Saturday but we weren't sure where to go. Brian had hoped to snorkel but there were storms brewing and the surf was rough so we thought he probably wouldn't have much luck with that. Our next job was to figure out how to get to the beach. You can't walk (and I wouldn't have wanted to even if we could) so we had to taxi, bus or ferry to the beach. Unfortunately, we'd missed the first ferry over to the Southampton Princess and the next one wasn't for over an hour. We decided to find a bus schedule and try our luck with that method of transportation.
Now, I have to explain that my nerves had been rearing their ugly head this morning. What with the brown water, and missing the ferry and Brian being a little frustrated that we were frittering away our only day to have fun, I was really not very happy at this point.
By the time we'd made it to the lobby it was about 10:40 or so and we still weren't sure what to do. The Ferry left for the Southampton Princess at 11:15 so I was in favor of just waiting for it since it would probably take that long to catch a bus anyway. But Brian wasn't quite ready to give up on the bus idea. The folks at the front desk gave us a schedule and told us how to walk to the bus station to buy tokens. I was still spouting my ferry idea as we sat down in the lobby to figure out out what bus we needed to take.
I'm huffing and puffing and acting frustrated as we perch on the pretty couches in the lobby by the fireplace and Brian is carefully studying the maps and schedules. I'm completely agitated until I notice who is sitting across the coffee table from us. It's Stedman! You know, Stedman Graham, Oprah's boyfriend! I instantly perk up! Maybe Oprah is here too!
| Stedman & Oprah |
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I'm geeky enough that this sighting completely transformed my bad mood. "I have to take his picture", I think, and start scheming how I'm going to do it without causing a scene. There's nobody else around in the lobby or anything so it would be totally obvious. I get up and try to spy on the pile of papers in front of him on the coffeetable. Sure enough, there's his name, big as life, Stedman Graham. Hmmm. I take a casual stroll around the lobby trying to guess how to take a casual snapshot of him but realize it's impossible and give up and take a seat next to Brian again. But I can't keep my mouth shut. I have to share the sighting with him -- he hasn't even noticed that he's there. (By the way, I know that he's really not that famous or exciting, but I swear it was still exciting.)
So I whisper to Brian "do you know who that is over there?" and he glances up (still mad at me and the map) and his eyes suddenly bug out and says "O.W." and we totally crack up. By then Stedman had wrapped up the conversation he was having with the other person on the couch and was getting up to leave so that was the end of the excitement.
The minute Stedman left my bad mood came back. (boo!) We bickered some more over the bus/ferry issue. I snapped out and had a fit about what a bad time we were having in Bermuda and eventually my snit won out and we decided to wait for the 11:15 ferry. Brian gets another gold star for not pushing me off the dock into the harbor at this point.
| Leaving the Princess on the Ferry |
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As you can see in the picture, it had shaped up into a beautiful day! We were on a half hour ferry ride to the Southampton and their private beach. I cheered up a lot on the ride over because the scenery was just so pretty. Sailboats and brightly colored houses were everywhere and it was just a great way to relax. We ran into a bit of trouble on the other end of the ferry though. It seems that you need to take a small shuttle bus from the ferry dock to the hotel & the beach. Only we, being the impatient dorks that we are, insisted on walking. I'm happy that we weren't the only saps who decided to walk up the giant hill to the hotel but walk we did. On the way up the shuttle we were too impatient to wait for passed us. Then another empty one pulled up, opened the door and offered us a lift. Did we say yes? Of course not. Lisa from Team in Training and her husband also blew off the ride but the other set of walkers hopped in. They were smart since when we got to the top of the hill we found out that we needed the be on the bus to get to the beach. ARGH! Could we have any more misadventures today?
I asked the doorman if he could tell us how to get to the beach. And he decided to be funny --- only since I was such a huge grouch, I decided not to notice that he was joking. At first he told us that we couldn't use the beach if we weren't staying at his hotel. (I knew this was wrong since they're sister properties but I was still slightly afraid that maybe they'd changed the rules.) So I start to nervously dispute his claim, which sets him off on another very crabby speech telling me that I was crazy if I thought I could barge in on his beach without paying.
At this point, Brian figured out that it was all a big joke but I was still clueless. He finally relented (since I was so pretty, HA!) and told us that we'd have to take the shuttle down to the beach. Keep in mind that this is the very same shuttle we were too impatient to wait for down at the ferry dock. The funny doorman proved to be the MVP of the tourist part of the trip by telling us to be sure to find out how to get to Horseshoe Bay. (By the way, I'm going to post a whole page with pictures from Horsehoe Bay but it's not ready yet.)
| The beach at the Southampton Princess |
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We finally arrived at the beach about noon and finally had time to RELAX. The beach was amazing and it even had cute thatched umbrellas, lounge chairs and a bar. And the water was just fabulously pretty. We didn't stay here long though because we took the quick (like 3 minute) walk to Horsehoe Bay.
Now that was an amazing sight to see. It's just gorgeous! And for some reason (wind maybe) it was nearly deserted. Here are a couple of photos just so you can get an idea of what it was like.
| Brian & Horsehoe Bay |
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| Horseshoe Bay |
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We spent several hours at Horseshoe Bay swimming and taking pictures and Brian climbed on all the rocks (I was afraid to because of the marathon). It was just beautiful and it was certainly the most relaxing part of the trip. Eventually we wandered back to the Southampton beach and Brian got a chance to snorkel for about a half hour until it was time to catch the shuttle back to the ferry. He cut the timing pretty close -- we weren't sure how often the shuttle bus ran and we needed to be on the 3:15 ferry to the Princess or I wouldn't have enough time to get to the race expo to pick up my number. Anyway, he was just getting out of the water when a bus pulled up and most of the other marathon types had already left the beach or were getting on this shuttle. He was drenched and covered in sand and not at all ready to hop onto a bus. Needless to say, this flipped me out and I got really angry with him and mad.
We did manage to get onto the bus and made it to the ferry dock (where we had to just sit and wait for 20 minutes for the boat to show up) but I was just a crying mess. I was so upset that he could have caused us to miss the boat and thus the expo that I just freaked completely. It was stupid and I completely overreacted but the stress of the race, and the rest of the troubles we had so far on the trip all boiled over into a big crying fit. Brian was a great sport as I had the meltdown and apologized for staying a few minutes too long in the ocean for not suggesting that I go on my way and he'd catch up. Luckily this was the last fit of the weekend.
When we got back to the hotel there was a message from Kim with Team In Training saying that the expo hours were wrong in the welcome packet and that it was closing at 5 and not 6. This meant I had to zoom over there all gross from the beach to get my number. It didn't much matter. The expo was small and cute and didn't take long to get your things. There was a guy selling some massage tool, a booth from the Walking Club of Bermuda (where I got a very cool sweatshirt but missed meeting my e-mail friend Terri), a booth selling rum cakes, and a bunch of pretty Bermuda paintings and prints.
| Lisa & Jayne |
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| A Survivor & A Survivor's Mom |
The Pasta Party
The Team in Training pasta party was really nice. The food was good, a nice salad, a few different types of pasta, plus red sauce, pesto and an interesting pumpkin fennel sauce. There were also some nice bean salads and cold pasta salads and some great cookies for dessert. But the interesting part was really the speakers.
We learned that the Bermuda group (101 walkers) had raised over $350,000 for research and that was rather impressive, I thought. They reminded us that no matter how we performed in the marathon on Sunday we'd already reached our goals but raising so much money for research and that no matter what happened we'd done a lot and helped a lot of people. The marathon and the medals are just icing on the cake.
We heard a nice speech from a Georgia TNT coach about a woman who had been diagnosed with lymphoma and still did the Bermuda marathon last year. Unfortunately, she lost her battle with cancer but many folks were in Bermuda to walk in her memory. One of the big highlights was hearing one of my own teammates speak about her triumph over cancer. Lisa - on the left in the picture - had been diagnosed with advanced lymphoma in 1997 when she was 28. It took nearly a year of being passed from doctor to doctor before she was properly diagnosed and by then she was in pretty bad shape.
She explained how she had a tumor the size of a shoe growing in her chest and how with many courses of chemotherapy and radiation is shrunk down to nothing. They told her that she had less than a 20% chance of being alive 5 years from her diagnosis and yet there she was, giving a speech and getting ready to do a marathon. She's just an amazing example of what can be done to help people.
Jayne is the other woman in the picture --- she's the Mom of our team's patient hero, Markie. He was diagnosed as an infant and has since been cured. Yay! She's been involved in TNT via Markie for several years but this was her first marathon as a participant. We had 2 other mothers on our team whose children survived cancer and I'm happy to say that they both finished the full marathon. Great job, everybody!
After the pasta party we had a team meeting with Char, our coach, where she gave us some last minute pep talks and got us psyched for the next morning. She was so nice, she made us each a special breakfast so we wouldn't have to go to the cash & carry breakfast provided by the hotel (we got to avoid the $3.00 bagels!). Here's what she gave us: a bagel, a tube of skippy peanut butter, a little bag of soy nuts, a box of raisins, a juice box, some sweet-tarts and a handful of Mary Janes candy. It was awesome! She also made name tags for us to wear during the race and gave us all little heart shaped pins to remind us to put our whole heart into the marathon. Awwww.
| My cool Tattoo |
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The Night Before
After the party I went back to my room and started to prepare for the marathon. We were to meet in the lobby at 6:15 so I had to get up pretty early to be sure to have time to eat and stretch out some before getting to the starting line.
I laid out all my clothes, pinned my race number, the name tag & heart and the picture of Markie (handed out by Jayne) to my singlet and then set about getting my feet ready for the next morning. I put blister blockers on my 2 known sore spots and covered up a new hot spot with an advanced healing band-aid. I'd read somewhere that it's smart to put on your socks the night before the marathon so I put on my favorite smartwools before hitting the hay. (This might have been a big mistake because I had a lot of blisters on Sunday in places where I normally am trouble free --- could this be from sweating in my socks overnight? I'm not sure but next time, no overnight socks! I can't believe I broke the first rule of marathons: do NOTHING differently than in training!)
I also got Brian to fill up my Camelbak with the Gatorade I brought (fierce grape) and make sure there were no airbubbles in it so I wouldn't have to listen to it gurgle for 26 miles. I packed the storage compartment with 6 Power Gels, the sweet-tarts and MaryJanes from Char, a pack of tissues, some wipes & blister stuff just in case, and a boullion cube from Char in case of a low sodium problem. I also rigged up a lightweight camera case to hold the cheapie Kodak disposable camera I brought along the course with me. I took a handful of pictures with it and they all stink so you probably won't see any on this web page.
And of course, I did the most important thing -- put on my fabulous temporary tattoo! Check out how tough I look with it in the picture! Also, take note of the nifty shoe tag. For some reason the TNT people leave that on their shoes long after the race. I guess they think it makes them look cool.
Brian was getting up early too because he wanted to take some pictures and see as much of the marathon as he could so we were both in bed by about 10:30 or 11. We were both nervous about the alarm going off so we did a test run with the alarm clock and that proved crucial. The clock was set incorrectly -- it read AM when it was really PM -- so if I hadn't done a test run when I set the alarm for 5:15 AM it wouldn't have gone off at the right time. We fixed that problem but also set up a wake up call for 5:30 as a safety net. As it turns out I didn't sleep very well so I woke up before the alarm sounded anyway.
| Eastern PA Team |
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| I'm 2nd from the left in the back row. Char, our coach, is behind me in the pink hat. |
November 17, 2002
THE MARATHON (I bet you thought I'd never get to this part)
I jumped out of bed, got dressed and ate my breakfast in record time. We had a coffee machine in the room so I brewed a pot and drank that while I tuned into the weather channel to see what it was like outside. A peek out the window showed it to be windy and I assumed chilly so I put on a white coolmax t-shirt on under my singlet. The weather channel said it was 74 degrees and 94% humidity but I guess I didn't believe it or I never would have worn that extra shirt.
At 6:15 we made our way to the lobby and the second I stepped outside I knew that the white shirt had to go. Luckily Brian had some sunscreen with him so I could put that on in the spots formerly covered by the t-shirt. By 6:30 we were on our way to the starting line. The sun was just coming up, the breeze felt nice, but it was quite clear that it was going to be a very hot and very humid day. We walked over to the starting line, about a quarter mile from the hotel, and did our pre-race stretching in the middle of the road. This is a very small marathon so the whole thing was pretty low key and homey.
| The Town Crier |
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| The starting Line |
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As it got closer to the 7AM start time we all made our way into the street and got ready to hear the Town Crier kick off the race. Isn't he cool? He welcomed us to Bermuda and rang his bell to start the marathon!
The first mile or so of the race is along Front Street in Hamilton. This is the main area of the capital city and the street is lined with shops and restaurants on either side. You can glimpse the harbor along the right side of the road too. Even though there was a small field of walkers (maybe 500 total between the half-marathon and full-marathon competitors) the road is narrow and it was quite crowded a this point. We were able to walk in large groups for the first mile of the race before we were asked to walk in single or double file along the left side of the road. (Remember, they drive on the left in Bermuda!)
Still, there was a lot of bunching and getting stuck behind slower people at this stage and occasionally we'd be thwarted by rows of scooters parked in the road or similar traffic related problems. I had a good deal of trouble getting away from the slower walkers and it proved difficult to extricate myself from them even as the crowd thinned because of the traffic on the roads. So my advice to any future walkers is to be at the front of the pack at the start line if you are at all concerned with speed. At least be aware that you should pass people before the Botanical Gardens rest stop at mile 2 or you will have a hard time finding a safe time to do it for the rest of the race.
The first water/Gatorade station was at mile 2 near the Botanical Gardens on South Road and it is notable that despite all the pre-race literature talking about Ultima replenisher being the sports drink on the menu, it was definately Gatorade on race day. (YAY!) They had at least three flavors too: red, orange and yellow.
Every water station for the entire race had both Gatorade and water and everybody working them was friendly and encouraging. One other point of interest was about the littering. Or more accurately, the lack of littering. At our pasta party the "cheif botanist" of Bermuda spoke to us about the natural beauty of his island as asked us to respect the landcape and the people of Bermuda by being careful with our cups and trash. He mentioned that there would be ample trash bins near the aide stations and he was right. They were along the road at intervals and some people had even placed small buckets in their driveways to provide convenient places for us to drop our cups. So there was very little litter and I noitcied that even when there was no trashcans the walkers all managed to stack their cups neatly in columns along the stone walls by the roads -- very easy to clean up!
Stay tuned for more...
Hey! I'm back in action! It's been over a month since the marathon and my memory is a little rusty but I'm going to try to remember everything and get it down on paper. I'm sorry I haven't posted before this but it's been busy. Anyway --- back to the marathon!
When you pass the mile 2 rest stop you begin to climb what are the only major hills on the course. They're not particularly steep but they are long and some people really had trouble with the combination of hills and heat. Lucky for me, I'd done tons of hill training so this really wasn't hard for me at all and I managed to pass a lot of people on this section of the course. It wasn't easy though!
There was a mother/daughter team from Team Diabetes on this section and they were driving me batty. They were total slowpokes and as I mentioned before it was hard to pass people because the roads were narrow and there was a decent amount of traffic going up and down the curvy street. It wasn't easy to get around people without risking being run over by a scooter. You couldn't pass on the non-traffic side either because of the high stone walls that lined the road. In any event the mother/daughter team was totally in my way. I would get right on their heels and then pass and no sooner would I get by them would they zoom ahead, sometimes even running, and then whamm-o. Stop and resume their snail pace ahead of me. I was ready to murder them and the poor Mom was really sufferring because she wasn't up to the running at all. I don't know why I was bugging them so much but I was glad to blow by them on the steep hill and luckily never see them again for the whole race.
It was at the top of the hill, around mile 5 that I started to worry about my feet. They didn't hurt or anything, but they felt hot and sweaty and I was far more aware of them that I normally am during a walk. I knew at this point that I was probably going to wind up with blisters on my toes and that shocked me and worried me because it was so early in the race.
It was also about this time that I caught up to Lisa from Team In Training who I'd done a bunch of my longer training walks with. I was happy to see her because we both normally walked at the same rate and I was hoping to be able to stick with her for a large chunk of the marathon. Unfortunately, nature was calling me and I decided to duck into a cute little pink bathroom hut by John Smith's Bay that looked a heck of a lot more inviting than the porta-potties I'd passed up to this point. (I wasn't planning on having to make a pit stop this early in the race but I was concerned about the humidity and I had been drinking both water and gatorade at every water stop.)
Here's my advice to anybody in the marathon or even visiting Bermuda. Avoid this pink bathroom hut at all costs! What a completely vile experience! First of all, you could smell the horrible smell even before you reached the building. Then when you get inside you realize that it's really just a permanant porta-pottie afterall. Only for some reason you have to climb up on a giant box to use the seat. (Which was sickening and unusuable anyway) Anyway, there I am holding my breath because of the horrible, horrible, horrible smell, trying to undo the Camelbak and use the thing all while trying to be speedy and not loose much time. So I finish up and then I'm trying to figure out how to flush it ---- and then I see this giant metal foot plunger thingie. It was so hard to push it I couldn't even believe it. I needed so much force to push the thing that I nearly flew off the giant platform I was standing on. I can't say enough how gross and pesky this hut was. Steer clear!
By the time I finally got away from the pink hut, I'd fallen behind Lisa by quite a bit. The good news is that I rain into Laura from my TNT chapter and her daughter so I had some friends for the next bit of the race until I managed to pick up some more speed and move ahead again. Along this stretch the course gets quite lovely with the water curving along to the right and pretty houses along the left side of the road.
It was time for me to pull out a raspberry cream Power Gel about now too. I stuck closely to the idea of a power gel every 5 miles of the race and I think it really helped keep me feeling good. (I'm sure the double caffeince one I had near mile 20 helped A LOT.) I knew that I was really going slow on this lap and I was determined to pick up the pace. I passed Laura and joined up with some women from Kansas City and walked with them for quite some time. They were three friends who were doing the race for fun and for each other and weren't part of TNT or Team Diabetes. They kept a nice fast pace and I walked with them for a bit until they needed to stop at a porta john and I kept going. I ran into them much later in the race though.
The next 5 miles flew past -- I ran into Brian at Mile 10 and I felt great like I could easily finish without even a hint of trouble. I was wrong about that, but I was still excited to see him up there taking pictures and wishing me luck.
Along this stretch I caught up with Lisa and we kept pace for several miles. Around mile 12 or so we separated and I found myself walking with Debbie from Texas. She was a Team Diabetes person, and she also has diabetes so we spent some time at mile 13 in the ladies room in the air conditioning cooling off and sort of regrouping before pushing on. She also had to test her blood in there, so that took a few extra minutes too.
It was amazing seeing people finish at 13.1 Part of me was jealous of them because the heat was really starting to kick in but mostly I was feeling good and I was excited to push on for the 2nd half of the race.
I had developed some blisters by this point, and they concerned me but they were all in my toes -- the baby toe on each foot. They weren't hindering my gait though, just making my feet feel kind of gross inside my shoes.
I lost Debbie on the uphill section around mile 16. She had more in the tank than I did I guess because she just turned on the jets and sped past me. I didn't think I was going that slowly, but I suppose I was! At the top of the hill, when the shade started to fail, I really started to worry that I was going to wind up with sunburn. I was getting really hot and I knew there wasn't much in the way of shade for most of the remaining miles. I had washed my face off in the ladies room at the halfway part and started to worry that I was going to fry. At one of the water stops I drank my required H20 and gatorade but also made sure to cool off by throwing some water over my head. I also let my hair out of the barette at this point thinking that hair in my face was preferable to a totally sunburned forehead. It covered me up at least a little bit.
Soon after I let down my hair, some awesome Joints in Motion lady offered me a saltine. How hilarious that I'd be so excited about a saltine! The problem was that the saltine almost did me in! It tasted great, but it got all stuck in my throat and I couldn't seem to wash down the crumbs. I had a complete coughing fit and even though I had stuff to drink in my Camelback I was still not quite right for a mile or so. Eventually I came to a little cafe near where the Big Man's Shop was and some spectator handed me a purple jolly rancher. This was the best thing I ever ate in my entire life! I love that person. It tasted so good and it solved the cracker problem. Amazing.
It was tough at this part of the marathon. I was walking mostly alone, I was hot, and more than anything, I was BORED.
It sounds crazy that you could be bored but I was. The scenery was beautiful but at this stage it was already familiar to me. There were people around, but they weren't really spectators or cheerleaders. They were more just regular people doing their Sunday business. Going to church, waiting for the bus, just hanging out. Some of them were nice and cheered and clapped as I walked by but most didn't pay too much attention.
I was sick of talking to other people by now, mostly people were alone and they were crabby and hot and sore and nobody was really very good at being an uplifting force.
So I just plowed ahead. I know that I ran into Brian at about mile 21 and that was great. I mean, seeing somebody who knew who I was and who cared how I was doing was awesome. I think I looked pretty perky then too because I was so glad to see him. I have some pictures of that that I'll have to set up here. Somewhere here, probably around mile 21, I ate my last Power Gel. It was a double caffeine Tangerine and I remember thinking that it tasted really, really bad but I think it gave me a good boost and carried me until the point where I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. I'm not sure if that was a real or placebo effect but I'm crediting the power gel.
I remember 2 guys near the very end of the race, probably mile 25 or so who were totally mocking me for limping. My worst blister had just exploded and I was really in pain for about a half mile. I was limping and struggling and I forget how they teased me but I wanted to kill them at that moment. But I just yelled back that they were mean and laughed and kept going. At least by then, I knew I could finish, painful or not.
I think from about 21 to 24 things were rough, I mentioned the boredom, my muscles were more sore, my blisters were bothering me but once past 24 you started to anticipate the end and that certainly is a boost. Plus, a good part of the end of this course is shaded and downhill and that was great too.
Mile 25 held a finisher sitting on a wall and cheering people along and who was nice enough to collect the trash I'd been clutching since the last water stop. Then shortly past that I ran into Char, my coach, who told me that I was the 3rd walker from our team to pass that point. (Fast Carrie & Lisa were ahead of me). Soon after seeing Char I passed the hotel and then I just had to cruise up Front Street to the finish. One thing that was funny was having to cross back and forth on the street to avoid the guys putting up Christmas Tree lights in the trees along the street.
The last .2 miles were the longest EVER. I swear, I didn't think I'd ever make it across the line. But I did and it was awesome! It's amazing how great and how miserable you feel at that point. I sucked down some water, ate an apple, and checked in to get my TNT 26.2 pin. There was music playing and people milling around and it just felt great.
I swore that I would never walk again at that point but sure enough, as soon as the blisters healed I was plotting how I'd fit training for marathon #2 into the schedule.
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