The Mommy Comeback to 26.2

Team Purple!

Sunday, February 14th, 2016, on my eldest child's 5th birthday, I ran my 8th full marathon! 26.2 miles! In Austin, my new city! It was my slowest marathon ever! But do you know what one's slowest marathon is? It's a personal record for the most continuous minutes of running EVER! Woo hoo!

The Good
I ran with my sister. We dressed as twinsies with purple shirts and black spandex. It was a blast. People on the sidelines love twinsie runners and they were calling us "Team Purple" and it made running by the spectators super fun.

Mile 18 shenanigans with the kiddos

Not having a time expectation (like my previous 6 marathons) took so much pressure off that I just smiled and waved and looked at the signs. The miles just kept coming by.

The weather was great - cloudy, not too hot, not too cold, no rain. Apparently some people thought it was humid but I felt great.

We drank just the right amount of water and Gatorade, took our energy gummies at just the right times, and I felt like I had just the right amount of energy throughout the race.

I ran the Austin marathon in 2009 and I remembered what the hilliness of the course was like. Everyone talks about this marathon in a scary way for this reason. For a native western-PA girl they really aren't bad. They are either kinda long but really not-steep, or short and kinda steep.

Seeing the kids and the husband and our parents at mile 18 was so much fun. It gave me such a burst of happiness to see them! I highly recommend running a lot of marathons, then not running marathons while having two kids over 6 years, then making a marvelous comeback to the distance and making sure said kids are there to cheer for you and feed you your gummies and offer you a sip of their birthday hot chocolate. It's very invigorating.

The Bad
I kind of pulled my hamstring/IT band in my last short/long run one week before the race, because I'm dumb and I was feeling good and wanted to try and run my 10 miles fast. So I did and I aggravated the ongoing injury. and so it hurt pretty bad during the race. However, since I wasn't pushing for a PR, I was able to take it easy. Also I took some ibuprofen around mile 20 that helped.

My 7th marathon was almost 6 years ago. That means it almost felt like my first marathon all over again, so I was suuuuper anxious leading up to the race. Anxious that I would fail, anxious that I would run super slow, or whatever.

My lowest mental point in the race was when we passed the 30K mark at around 3:38. That is my marathon PR (January '09) and seeing that we still had 12K left to go just made me feel really slow and like I will never get back to my pre-kids speed (Only time will tell, eh?), and what's the point in doing something if you're not getting better at it? (P.S. I mention this because it was my lowest point, but for most of the race I just felt really proud of myself for getting back out there after kids, and accepting the season I'm in and respecting the journey)

The Ugly
There was no ugly because I did my hair in a cute braid ponytail combo and it actually looked pretty good throughout the race. :)

Marathon hair

...I did sort of ugly-cry in an emotional way after we crossed the finish line. Marathon #8, and marathon #1 post-kids, is in the books, folks.

xoxo Phae

Austin Marathon 2016 Finishers!