7/4/2012
The start of the summer in the NW kicks off with the firecracker
double/triple or in the case of next year- quadzilla!! This year due to the timing of the 4th
of July holiday we ran our first 2 races on Saturday and Sunday and then the
third on Wednesday July 4th.
I am not up to 80 total marathon/ultra distance events on my way to 100
by my birthday next year! So let’s talk about
the last 3 in 5 days.
There were a ton of Marathon Maniacs in the house for our
first day of fun!
(I am in the back left with the white hat:)
The first race in the series is the Cook Park Marathon which
started at 7am Saturday morning. During
this race we were running 8 loops in Cook Park, just 5 minutes from my
home. Now granted running 8 loops for a
marathon is challenging it is very challenging when you just raced your first
IronMel 6 days before. Steve Walters,
the RD, and many follow runners made my day on this Saturday with cheers of “IronMel”
every loop that I completed. So even
though I was tired and wondering why I was out there, every loop I was reminded
and this made me smile and keep going. I
also met a wonderful lady named Terri from CO who also competes in IronMan
events and we had a great time swapping stories. She is also the first and only person that I
have personally met that has been struck by lightning!! She is one tough cookie and I loved the time
that we spent running and swapping stories, and was very impressed with everything
that she has accomplished.
After the race on Saturday my fiancé and I then attended a
wedding Saturday night. I really wished
that I could have worn compression socks to the event and kept my feet up, but
as you can see below I did neither and still have a blast! I was a beautiful wedding!
Sunday I was a bit tired after being up late, running a
marathon the day before, and still not being recovered from IM. Nonetheless I am on a mission to get to 100
and this next race was even closer to my home- 2 minute drive. I headed out into the rain for the next event. As you can see below the group is already
getting soggy.
I was feeling overall not too bad though and started our
pretty good. The course had to be
rerouted because of all the rain we were getting in OR and the tunnel that we were
going to run though was flooded out. We ended
up having to cross a pretty busy street for this one and it added significant distance
to the course. The distance was taken care of and instead of
8 loops we only had to do 6 and an out and back, which is always welcome
news! The part that had me pretty
worried were all of the runners that were cutting the course to dart through
traffic and not waiting at the cross walk that we now had to go through. Steve had to actually put course Martials out
there to stop people, but even then some people continued to risk their safety and
the overall event by breaking the law.
Some runners tried to justify it when I called them out by saying that
they were running the same distance because they still went up to the turn around
after they ran through all the traffic, but all of us had to wait at the light
at some point so they still cheated by not taking their turn to do this. Still cheating
in my book and I have lost all respect to those that I called out on the course
and watched do it. None of us were going
to Boston with this race so they fact that they still thought it necessary to
risk our race getting shut down is incredibly selfish of them!
Other than this the race was great. Everyone was very supportive, we had a ton of
fun together, the volunteers were awesome!
And I even had some unexpected great pacers with my friend Karen and
Jash coming out to surprise me and run some of the loops. This was a huge mental boost and made the day
just very fun!!
Monday and Tuesday I just went to work and rested my body
and got ready to run the Fleet Feet Flat on the 4th of July. This one started early at 6:30am so I was up
at 4:30 and on the road by 4:50am to get to the island very early. Traffic every year backs up very badly and I
never want to be waiting in that driving line when the starting gun goes
off. The weather was perfect at the
start and we headed out to a beautiful morning.
I was sad to see the top ½ marathon men take a wrong turn down the
marathon out and back section, but after I yelled for them to turn around they
were off course and they kept going I just figured they deserved it if they
could not read a map and fail to listen to people telling them they are going
the wrong way. They finally realized it
and I was able to watch them all run back past me. Another good reason that you should always at
least have a general idea of where your course is going, this one was really
easy because they were only supposed to do a loop on the island so it should have
been pretty apparent to them that they were off course when they made a
left. Anyways I am never that close to
the front to have to worry about such things. :)
The morning went good and I was feeling pretty ok. I was trying to new gels that were out on the
course and even though I hated how they tasted my stomach seemed to be fine with
them and it kept me going. I started to
get very hot in the last 4 miles and was so happy that I always run this race
with a hand bottle. I kept hydrated and
had a very strong finish catching a few that were in front of me the whole race
in the last 2 miles. The medals they
gave for this race are also AWESOME!!
Overall I am thrilled with my triple in 5 days week of fun
and am ready to tackle the 20 more that I need to get in before May 18th!
