Mother Road Marathon Recap

So I ran the Tri-State Mother Road Marathon on Sunday. 10/9/11. I picked this race for a few reasons.... the first was that it runs through 3 states (OK, KS, and MO) and the second was that it was on my late friends 31st birthday and I thought that it would be a good day to get out there are really feel alive!

I figured that the weather in October would be a nice cool 50 degrees...not so much. The low was 70 and the high for the day was 83. So in a toasty 70 degrees in the middle of Commerce, OK I started out.

Mile 1: Ok..go out slow....
Mile 2: Just trying to get my rhythm here
Mile 3: Hmm the breeze feels kinda nice
Mile 4: Oh, I see a tree for 10 seconds of shade
Mile 5: Wow, it's really warm out here
Mile 6: I feel like I have a fever
Mile 7: ok 58 year old man that I'm pacing with...you go on ahead
Mile 8: CRASH ....POUT....WHINE....this sucks... I seriously called my friend that I was down there with to whine and cry that "Melissa...I'm so HOT" and to tell her that I'm not going to be on pace and I will not be making it to mile 20 at the time I was hoping for.
Mile 9: Ok..this is where I was really hurting and since it would have been Nina's birthday- I dedicated mile 9 to her and tried to look back on all the happy crazy things in life. I was going to dedicate each mile to someone from there on out. Which promptly ended when I reached mile 10.
Mile 10-16: I need to take care of myself before they find me on the side of this manure smelling road. I took in a water and a gatorade at every water stop. I walked ALOT. And I took virually all of my honey stingers. But I was feeling frisky by mile 18!!
Mile 18: "Excuse me does anyone have sunscreen"  I could feel my body cooking. Luckily a nice lady had some in her car...so I walked with her off the road to where her car was so she could dig around and get me some relief. Aaaugh that felt good. Oh and some nice folks had bottles of water there also. I grabbed one for the HUGE hill coming up at mile 19.
Mile 20-23: Did I mention that it was a strong head wind that day?? and that it was a very hilly course? I enjoy hills ( I really do), but these SUCKED. I usually don't mind wind either, but going up hill into a head wind when it's 77 degrees out...was not my idea of a good time.
Mile 23-26: Wow, I'm almost done!! I should be able to run the last 3 miles right?? I feel pretty good...HA. I don't know if I was able to run 1 whole mile. So I continued my run/walk business and happily finished the course.

The scenery was nothing spectacular, except in Galena there is the truck "Mater" from the movie Cars. So, I had some old lady standing by it take a picture of me. My son was so excited!! Melissa came out and met me around mile 20, 21, and I think 24 so I posed for a  few pictures for her.

Even though I was 45 minutes over my goal time, I had lots of fun. Sometimes I need to remember that not everything is a rush and being about getting a good time. This success came from finishing the race.

I was really thinking that I was one of the only ones severly affected by the heat, so when I looked at the results later that night, I was pleased to see that I took 4th overall for women and 1st in my age group. Maybe I wasn't just being a wuss.