Brian and I completed our first race together- the Atlanta Half Marathon, on Thanksgiving Day. My brother, Jordan, and two sisters, Emily and Claire, also ran with us. I wish I could say we did our best but, it didn't exactly start out perfectly...
To begin, we were 45 minutes late to the the start line! Yes, you heard right. We had to ride the Marta up to the start and the trains took alot longer than planned to arrive. Then, we couldn't find the start line once we got there b/c it was so late, so we ran at least a half mile all over the place looking for the start. Once we reached it, we realized that they had moved the mats back to accomodate the marathoners' split times. So, we don't know how far we ran, but it was much more than 13.1 miles. On top of all that, it was pouring rain- not sprinkling, not just normal rain, torrential rain. We had to wipe our eyes just to see in front of us. Kind of crazy. The one good part was that it wasn't cold. If it would have been, we might have just turned around and gone back home. Brian and I finished in great time, but you would have never known it since we were hanging with the fast-walkers by the end. It was decent to roadkill the entire race though! To explain my low-hanging clothing, I must remind you that I was carrying at least 2 pounds of water around with me on that clothing. Brian did an awesome job on the race, especially considering that about 4 weeks prior he got hit with bronchitis and couldn't train for 3 weeks. He really pulled it off and trained twice as hard at the end just to make up for it and pulled off an impressive time, all things considered.
Brian and I ran together until about mile 9 when I decided I was ready to be done, so I took off and tried to finish as quick as I could. I even sprinted in the last half mile. I felt great until about 10 minutes after the race and my stomach decided it had had enough. I didn't realize until several hours later that I was seriously dehydrated and I paid the ultimate price. We had to stop a few times on the way home to accomodate my little condition. Some "magic pills" and liquid helped me get better by bedtime. One of the other side effects of dehydration is loss of appetite- of all days! I had to FORCE myself to eat Thanksgiving dinner.
Here are some lovely pics...
