Just an Average SKIRT

Great day today 4:56:10….beat my goal of 5 hrs and finished strong.

It started in the dark in downtown Phoenix, I was by myself and loving every minute of it. Headphones blasting Life is Beautiful by Vega4 as I took in some people watching, thought of my husband who I miss every minute I’m away from as well as my 3 4-legged kids (harry, lhasa, weke). I had not one ache or pain, I was cozy in my marathon dress, tough girl, hoodie and gloves. All just a luxury as the temps were not that bad, nothing compared to what I raced in at Denver Marathon or any of the training runs I’ve had leading up to this day. I felt so ready and quite empowered to be among thousands of strangers. I had a nice strong cup of coffee, some accelerade and many visits to my port a friend John.

The gun went off and I jumped into the moving corrals and started to jog. Wow, I really didn’t have an ache or a pain. I vowed to hold back the first mile, planning on a 13 minute first mile, I cruised through at a sub 10 with a very low heart rate (gotta love the descent in elevation). Within 10 minutes I saw the 5 hr pace group, I thought ‘well I’ll just catch up to them, stay with them and then take off at the end for a sub 5 finish’ this notion was immediately followed by ‘well I’ll just catch up to them, pass them and never see them again’. Thought #2 definitely more my style and necessary for the day ahead.

Pop, pop, pop - the sound of my feet, I concentrated on hearing my feet, focusing on my cadence and shutting that ole’mind of mine down for the duration. Hit the 10K time mat, half marathon time mat and headed for the 20. When I hit those mats I just kept thinking of BJ back in Boulder cheering me on, I could feel his support and encouragement, the steps over those timing mats were all for him. I knew he would be so excited and would celebrate each time check exuberantly with the dogs.

Just after mile 19 I met Bridget, thank you mother earth for that. We agreed that neither of us could talk but that our close proximity was paramount in keeping a certain pace. Bridget and I took it to just past mile 25 together. I fell behind at the mile 20 aid station as I stopped to stretch but caught up to her and lucky for me she was feeling a 2nd (or 3rd or 4th or 5th…) wind at that time. She said, ‘Jessica stick with me, I’m gonna tell you a story’ Let me preface this by saying she’s a New Yorker and her story was filled with all my favorite colorful lingo. She proceeded to tell me that she completed Ironman Florida in 2006 at age 44, signed up for Lake Placid in 2007 and entered the lottery for Kona. Won the lottery, decided to forgo Lake Placid and train for Kona. Went to Kona, great swim, great bike…mile 10 on the run her kidneys started to shut down and ended up having to DNF. Today she was out to reclaim her marathon finish that she lost in Kona. I then told her that I’ll be finishing my first Ironman in June….she quickly replied, ‘next aid station your not stopping, not walking, not stretching….and at mile 25 we’re picking it up. ‘ Music to my ears, I needed to push through the pain and finish today as quickly as possible. Just after mile 25 I needed to meet my goal and my friend was falling behind, I left her for my strong finish. At about 25.8 I saw my fellow skirt Chris and her fast hubby Craig (3:03:06 marathon today). Not sure if they realize that the 3 seconds I saw them gave me exactly what I needed to pick it up, get my legs moving faster and beat my goal by as much as I could today. I could hear Chris yelling about how great I looked then Craig popped to the curb with his finisher’s medal in his hand and yelled in a heavy metal tone ‘You want one of these….’. Yes please.

I picked it up and headed for the finish….mile 26 sign…..only .2 to go, push it hard, go faster, higher cadence, leave it on the course….finish line….finish line mat….26.2 #2 done. Thank you everyone who helped me get here, thank you coach, thank you to my clients who were so excited for me this week, thank you BJ for being the best husband in the universe and especially thank you to myself. Nice job Jessica, you worked hard girlfriend!

Thank you to my sister Susanne who traveled with me this weekend and ran the 1/2 today (with no training) and finishing with an incredible 2:17:51 time. Although she keeps trying to subtract her bathroom break of 2 minutes 30 seconds from her time. Can someone please tell her that you can’t do that?

Next stop….Ironman Coeur d’Alene.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 13th, 2008 at 7:12 pm and is filed under Triathlon. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.