Death Valley Marathon

I want to write about my experience running my first full marathon, but tonight I am beyond exhausted. Everyone has been sick here, it is 10:43 pm and I still need a shower.
So picture will do for tonight.

Update March 12th:
Phillip and I left Bakersfield early Friday evening and stayed a few miles away Death Valley because the prices of the resort there were so not worth it for us ($265 a night). We found a place that was much more affordable and just stayed there.

I really didn't get much sleep the two nights before the race. Sometimes I think my body performed a miracle running this race. I always ran on at the most 6 hrs of sleep. For the most part I got less than that. Phillip was in the middle of school and I was training at the same time. I knew I had to sacrifice my sleep so I could accomplish this goal of mine. Anyway, back  to the story... We woke up bright and early and drove to Death Valley. This is a very small race, which was perfect for me. Every runner picked up their race bib the day of the race. I had a banana and some pretzels and used the potty a few times before the race started.

We took off at 8am. I was feeling so good for the first 17 miles. I completed the first half of my marathon in 2:02 minutes. I felt so good! Then out of the nowhere my knee locked up, I couldn't bend it. This had never happened to me. I didn't know what to do. I stopped and stretched and that seemed to help. I kept going but I noticed that whenever I would speed up my knee would start locking up again. I had to slow way down. There were some miles where I was going at 10:45- 11:00 minute pace. I was sad and discouraged, but I knew I had to keep going. I had to stop and stretch  about every mile which was horrible for my time. My goal was to finish much faster than 4:26, but I still felt very accomplished when I finished. There is a lot of room for improvement at least. I hope my next marathon is much better.

A week later I went running with Phillip while we were in Bucerias. We ran 10 miles I believe and I felt really good and strong. My body was able to recover quickly and I am grateful for that.

I can't wait until I train for another marathon, maybe Santa Barbara in the fall and I hope to kill my time and get an awesome PR.

I also forgot to mention that I had a friend and two of my primary boys come and cheer for me. I felt very special.

I just about cried when they handed me that medal. 

With Josiah and Brayden