Karen's summary of the P.F Chang’s Marathon 2011

When I came home from Long Beach I was not excited about the fact that I was signed up to run the P.F Chang’s Marathon, partly because I was tired and sore, and partly because I was disappointed and didn’t know if I could really ever qualify for Boston and didn’t want to be disappointed again, but now I am so glad I did it. I feel like I took the laid back approach to training this time around and it worked great. We never did really long mid week runs and I even skipped a whole week when I was sick, but overall I did feel pretty good while training so I decided that I would try for 3:40 on marathon day, but I would be happy if I finished in under 4:00. When Lindy told me she wanted to run with me I was really happy and I felt like 3:40 was maybe more of a possibility.

I decided to stuff myself the night before just to make sure I would have enough energy come marathon morning so my family went to rigatony’s for an early dinner, I ate tons of pasta and bread and then was ready and in bed before 10:00 pm. I was so nervous race day morning, but after we started running I started to feel a little better and the miles just seems to keep passing by. I knew that I would see my family around mile 15 and I was excited for that (this was the first time they have been able to see me run in the middle of a race). Reddin had a water bottle ready for me, and I was able to leave my gloves and empty water bottle with him. It worked out great, because I never had to stop for water. Lindy and I seemed to keep a pace around 8:15 or close to it, and it felt pretty good. I only took 2 gels around mile 6 and then mile 19 and the rest of the time I sucked on the pomegranate honey stinger chews. Every mile we would check and see where we were at time wise and we always seemed to be two minutes ahead of schedule according to the pace band Lindy had, I don’t really know what we talked about for 26 miles, but we always came up with something to talk about, which made the time pass really fast. The crowd was great and I did like hearing the music as we came upon certain miles. At mile 22 we told ourselves we only had one loop around the islands left, putting it in that perspective helped. I think the last mile I slowed a little, but I knew I was going to reach my goal of under 3:40 and I was so happy. Lindy and I crossed the finished line together and we were so happy, I couldn’t believe I did it. After the last two marathons I felt terrible at the end, but not this time I felt great I was happy to eat yogurt and walk around, and I was excited to see Reddin and my girls. I had so much fun this race that I wish I was signed up for another one right now.