Hooray for Janet!

Kansas City was an ok marathon for me, I did have a PR, 4:49:13 but the best part of the event was Janet qualifying for Boston and she qualified handily with a 4:12. Congrats Janet, great effort and a tough course.

This was the first time to go out of town for a marathon and room with others. I wanted my husband to go with me but OU/Texas was too much competition. This was fun to hang out with Becky and Janet, we headed over to the convention center, took a long detour and after asking for directions a couple of times, we found the expo. We saw Carmi, Teresa, Donna, Katy, cindy and Chris at the Expo. The expo was pretty small and we went to the pasta dinner, very disappointing in my opinion, but Don Karong was a good speaker. Fortunately we saw Chris and the rest of the group after eating and he gave us a ride back to our hotel, thanks Chris!
We hung out in the room and watched HGTV. In the morning, we took a cab to the start line, we were only 5 blocks from the start but didn't want to walk that far in case it was too cold. This was a good choice. We stayed inside a building until about 6:35 and found our pace groups.

My goal was a 4:30 and I have a tendancy to set my goals too high. Since the end of July, I've been running only 3 times/week and I hadn't even thought about the effect that could have on my endurance. I had an excellent long run on the 3rd and the River Rush 5K was another PR for me so I felt really ready for this marathon. I lined up with the 4:30 pace group and hung with them for the first 11 miles. They had lowered their per lap time between mile 4 and mile 12 to make up for the beginning hill at mile 2-4. By mile 12 I could tell that I was tiring too much and I was having difficulty staying with them. I began to slow down and hit a major hill during this mile on a street called Sunset. I began to alternate walking and running and continued that thru the end. My legs felt heavy and my mind began to wander and I lost motivation. I got really bored between miles 13 and 19 and began to question why I even do these races. I even began to regret that I had already registered for the R66 and wished I was doing only the 1/2. Your mind does begin to have terrible thoughts during these long races and I hadn't put my music in to distract me. Once I got to 22 and saw the 4:50 pace group pass me, I got in gear because I didn't want to have a slower time than OKC. So I did get in under 4:50. Then I met Becky and Janet in the food tent and at that point Janet didn't say anything about qualifying for Boston. On our walk back to the hotel she said she thought she qualified but she wasn't certain. When we got back she had a phone message that she had qualified then I got on my laptop and got her official time and we oohed and awed that she had done it. All 3 of us had PRs so we were satisfied but obviously not as excited as Janet. Then we went to Cheesecake Factory and gorged ourselves, Janet's Luau Salad looked yummy and my Fiesta Burrito was delicious as well. Of course, we couldn't eat it all and had to save room for cheesecake. We rolled out of there and headed for home. Now I have 3 states down.

Next race: Tulsa Run, then R66.

Overall summary of the KC Marathon. Get with the pacers, mine were excellent, knew the course well and kept us posted of what was ahead and what we were going to do. Janet had an excellent experience, her pacer really wanted her to qualify and he kept encouraging her. The aid stations were excellent, always told you what beverages were first, which was almost always Gatorade and each aid station had a different flavor of Gatorade. They had Gu at least 2 times and vaseline as well. There were plenty of port-a-potties and lots of crowd support. The food tent at the end was well stocked too. The music was ok throughout the race but I wish they had at least one Christian band because I find that music so inspiring.