Week 8: 26 reasons to celebrate

After logging 30 miles this week, my body is exhausted, my knee is still in pain, and I feel totally beat down and broken. The usual. There aren't really any words to describe Saturday's 14-mile run. That is, it's hard to articulate that kind of physical and mental anguish. I will say that Body Glide is a girl's best friend. And it wasn't until I slipped into the hot shower (that is, several hours after my initial "ice bath" which was every bit as thrilling as it sounds) that I identified instantly every inch of my skin where I neglected to apply the Body Glide. This includes, but was not limited to: my belly button, in between my big and second toes, a small spot under my right arm, under my breasts, and.... wincing with embarassment .... in between my butt cheeks. Let's just say I won't make that mistake again.

On Sunday, Raj and I hit the road at 2am, stopping at Northgate Starbucks to pick up some fuel before driving south to Portland to watch Wacarra run the marathon. I am neurotic about arriving everywhere early, and in this case it worked to our advantage because we had our pick of street parking once we rolled into downtown. We had tons of time to kill, so we wandered around in the dark, people watching, with me paying close attention to the what all the marathon runners were eating prior to the race start. After killing time at yet another Starbucks, we wandered up to the race start at 3rd and NW Salmon. There was quite a crowd of spectators!


We were able to see Wacarra start, in either the 5th or 6th wave, then caught her again at mile 2 and between miles 4 and 5. After than, Raj and I wandered around looking for a good breakfast spot, and settled on Kenny and Zukes across the street from Powell's. The food was awesome! After breakfast, we spent a few hours in Powell's and then headed back downtown to catch Wacarra around mile 26.

We found a good spot to take photos a few hundred yards from the finish line. There was opera music blasting and a huge sign with a lady viking that read "It's almost over!" The crowd support was very inspiring! It was pretty emotional to watch the runners come in. These were the 4 hour + marathoners, the mortals, people you could actually relate to (vs. the 2-3 hour marathoners, aka "freaks of nature").

We spotted Wacarra a few minutes behind the 5:00 pacer - wow! What a great time!!! I was amazed that she was able to maintain such a solid pace throughout the whole race. Not only that, but she looked fresh and pretty damn happy. I snapped these shots at the 26 mile mark, with only 300 yards or so to go:

And then it was over, just like that. Afterwards, I asked her how it went and she said much easier than the training runs (which gives me hope), and miraculously she experienced no joint or knee pain. This completely baffles me.

Tonight I am going to get fitted for a new pair of shoes at Super Jock and Jill. I can't continue to run long distances with my knee pain, and I'm hoping a different pair of shoes will correct the problem (the knee braces aren't working). Switching shoes did the trick in the spring, and when I bought a new pair to train for this race I just bought the same pair of shoes. Maybe my gait has changed in the last 6 months? I guess we'll wait and see what the shoe people say.

Congratulations, Wacarra!