Today was the Pocatello marathon! I've been training for this race since January 1, so after 8 whole months of training the race finally came, and I was able to run pretty well. I went into the race a little bit worried about the lack of sleep that I had this week, but the morning of the race I felt pretty good, so I was excited for the race.
I was lucky enough to be on the front line at the start (I stood next to the man that got first place overall). The race started and it was a very steep downhill for the first few miles. My first mile was 5:58 and I felt like I was jogging. For almost the entire first half of the race, which is almost completely downhill, I felt like I was jogging. For a lot of it, I probably could have closed my mouth and breathed only through my nose. That's how easy it felt. At the half way point, my pace was 6:35/mile. I felt really good about that. I did feel some soreness in my quads though from the downhill.
At mile 15, I was forced to take a bathroom break, but I timed it and it only took 30 seconds. As I kept going, I got more and more tired, and I knew I was slowing down. At mile 21, there was a really good sized hill, and that's where I really started to feel it. The last six or so miles I felt like I was going to die. It hurt so bad to take every single step, especially because at that point I had a huge blister on the bottom of my foot that hurt really bad. I just kept pushing though knowing that under 3 hours was still a possibility. Those last few miles were probably the hardest thing I've ever put my body through physically, but at the mile 25 marker, I was at 2:51, so I knew I still had nine minutes to run (my goal was to finish under three hours). Finally, I turned the last corner into the home stretch, where I finally realized that I was going to break three, and I was so happy! It felt good knowing that with all the time and effort I put into this marathon I did what I had gone there to do, and it was one of the best feelings I've probably ever had. It was the hardest thing I've ever done physically, but in my opinion, it was worth it.
| 