I almost did it!

Well, the St. George Marathon has now come and gone. After 6 months of training and hard work I had to drop out at mile 17. What a disappointment! I was very pumped up and feeling confident and ready!

The morning of the race I woke up to see it was sprinkling. As we got on the bus in St. George it was pretty mild but the further we got up the canyon, the more the rain started to fall. At the starting line there was a pretty good wind. They were handing out garbage sacks but ran out just as we got to the table to ask for one. Luckily I had on my knit cap to keep the rain off my head. Raquel Westover, Suzette Greer and I all started out at a good pace. We were staying close to the 4:30 pacer. At Veyo hill I kept running and lost Suzette and Raquel. I was feeling good and didn't want to lose my momentum even though it was slow on the hill. I kept looking back to find them but couldn't. My left knee started hurting from about mile 5 but it just felt like normal aches and pains that come and go during a run. But about 13 it wasn't going away. By 15, I was only running a few hundred yards at a time. About 16, there was a long downhill stretch and, by that point, it was hurting to WALK down the hill. I knew I was done. I had to walk to 17 to catch a shuttle down to the finish line. I was so cold and so drenched that I couldn't stop the shivering. At the finish line I couldn't find anybody. We hadn't arranged for a specific meeting place. So I ended up walking around for about 30 minutes trying to find Kurt and the kids. I finally found them in the bleachers. They thought they had missed my finish. It took everything in me not to break down in tears when I told them I had to drop out. I was so cold and miserable! We stayed just long enough to see Suzette and Raquel finish and then went home.

The bummer about the knees is that I had this same problem about mid-way through my training. But I thought I had taken care of it. I hadn't had one knee problem since about July. I can't figure out if it was the cold that contributed to the problem or what! All I know is that this is not my last marathon. St. George 2009---I will be there!