to make a long story longer . . .

okay so since i have posted  just 3 weeks ago, i have two more marathons, well one ultra and one marathon, under my belt. i guess you can say i have some experience. i still feel new to the game. just lots of activity in a short period of time and a few lessons learned.  

sunmart was just awesome but i didnt really realize it until it was over. jason and i could not get to huntsville texas until late friday since i had to work. so we missed the pasta dinner and our dear friends trail zombie and his wife dana were gracious enough to register me and pick up our packets. hats off to you both and we owe you dinner. without you i would not have run this race and had this memorable experience. breakfast was awesome and i was a little scared to eat so much before a race. i ate a pastry, scrambled eggs, bacon and two small cups of orange juice. they had a lot more food to select from. it was very impressive. the weather was cold but i decided to run in shorts, a long sleeve tech shirt with a short sleeve tech shirt underneath. the cool thing about sunmart is after the first 6 miles or so, you pass by tent city where your drop bag is so you can change, stash your crap, re-body glide up and keep on goin'. jenni was with me for the first 24 miles or so. we talked during the beginning which helped keep my mind of the mild pain i had but this was difficult due to the need to concentrate on my steps and the need to conserve on breath. so i switch to my ipod and this helped me as it did on the marathon. another aspect i really enjoyed was that we were running opposite others in both the same race(50k) and the other race running certain parts of the course after the turn arounds. so you get to see both those in front of you and those behind you if timing is right. this was a lot of fun and very encouraging.  the terrain varied along the course as far as sand, rocks, lots of tree roots, dirt, hills. i think the sand was the most difficult especially uphill. at all the aid stations i ate a lot. there was a fabulous selection of food as noted in trail zombie's pics about 10 posts back. while i did do my gu packs just as i have done in all long races, i chose to also eat mostly sweets instead of the salts and this proved taxing later on in the race.  my hands begin to swell about mile 25/26. i have never had this happen before and was a bit scared. at an aid station i could see jason 'almost up ahead' and my goal was to catch him. i think i did about mile 28/29 or so and we ran/walked the rest of the way together. we walked mostly bcuz i was worried about the way i felt and the swelling of my hands. i later learned this was lack of salt and found a way to prevent this revealed later on in this post.  the comradarie of all the TATURs at the race was awesome. even those i had never met before were cheering for jas and i at the end. i love when people bond together. hanging out waiting for bobby, ken, dana, kathy and others to come in was a great time. the food after was awesome. (see ken's blog for his turkey leg pic). this is one race i would HIGHLY recommend and will do again and again. sunmart gets an A+ !  

so the thursday before sunmart i dropped by the store (runnersworld) and ran into marvin and chris. marvin mentioned that the two of them were going to baton rouge so chris could ful

fill his marathon maniac requirements. so i had to ask what that was about. they told me to go to marathonmaniacs.com and check it out. so i did. then i told jas. then he was determined to do this. we looked at the list of races coming up. we did not want to travel outside of driving distance so what was left? white rock one week after sunmart. what the hell are we thinking? ok, no problem, registration is closed until the expo. i work when the expo opens so by that time the full marathon will fill up right? jas' mom happens to live in plano and his step dad was available to register us right when the expo opened. no excuses. we are going to get this craziness done. 

white rock was a marathon i really don't care to do again. if a group goes i will go. 

usually sunmart and white rock are the same weekend so i will chose sunmart. and i am not really up for the double challenge so i will support those that are next year if it falls on the same weekend. it was windy and 70 degrees. unseasonably warm and we had not run in these temperatures for some time. jas and i started off good for having so many recent miles on our legs. it took about 9 minutes to cross the start line. it was so packed i thought it was never going to thin out. i decided to use this race to experiment with my new idea to keep my salts up since my hands swelled at sunmart: soy sauce packets. i LOVE soy sauce so at about mile 9 and 16 i downed a packet of soy sauce with some water and wow it was yummy. i will use this trick again so i dont have my water retention problem again. we finished the first 13.1 time in  about 2:35 or so. after that it fell apart. jas got a sharp pain on the top of his left foot that made his shoe really uncomfortable. being that we had 4 hours to finish and two goals to accomplish (finishing and marathon maniac status) we decided to keep going. the next 3 miles or so were run/walk miles. he was holding up but still in pain. he kept telling me to go on but i wanted to stay with him. we had to finish this race. we felt dumb at this point for even starting this race but since we did we were going to finish and i wanted to do so together. he is a lot faster then me so i wanted to actually run a race with him. i am finding when i start to get fatigued i need to run. walking just draws it out and i actually feel worse when i walk. but i did not want to leave him. i felt worse as i went on just because i felt like i was freezing up. his pain was getting worse and we were walking slower. just the look on his face was agonizing. time was closing in on us. at mile 22 he said that he did not pay for us to both not finish this race. so i decided to go on. i ran the entire rest of the way but was already very tense from all the walking. i probably ran no faster then 11 maybe even 11:30 miles. being disappointd with my time i havent tried to calculate my pace from my splits. i finished with a chip time of 6:06:41. i stood at the finish line blankly just hoping jas would cross before the deadline.  since i am not that experienced i wasnt sure if they were gonna pull the plug at 630 chip or gun time. 630 gun time passed and no jas. now when i crossed the finish line i was told there was water and food on the left. but i was not suprised to find a few bottles of water and NO FOOD. i guess this is going to be what i need to get use to since there was crap for food at the end of route 66. who are the people that are in charge of these races? do they not realize that the people that come in at the end need food and drink just like those who finish first? then i went back to the finish line. i was talking to a volunteer and then i saw jas. i got so excited i started crying. they were still announcing names even though the clock was over 6:30. the volunteer handed me the medal and told me that i could out it over jas' neck. i was crying harder. he was going to finish even though he was in so much pain. i was so proud of him!  some how he found the strength to run the last mile. we were finished with this race and completed our requirements for mm club. 

we can be found on the Marathon Maniacs Insane AsyLum as members # 1242 and #1243. 

our next race is 'race into the new year' in tulsa followed by the TATUR 'polar bear plunge' on january 1. our next race maybe psycho wyco in kc in february.  for right now

 i need a break!