Katie's Corner: Seattle Rock N Roll Marathon and Half Marathon....

The weekend is finally here! Jeromy and I both had Friday off from work so we could go to the Expo for the Seattle Marathon and 1/2. Jason and my cousin Laura were also going, with their son Kyle and daughter Hannah. Laura, Kyle and I were running. Jeromy, Jason and Hannah were there for emotional support! We ended up taking the same 3:00 ferry over to Seattle- yo!! Kyle what's up... I think you can tell we're related here- the awesomeness is shining thru....

So it was supposed to rain all weekend, so lame, it was totally bumming me out. I think Kyle was getting tired of my whining, he finally said " sometimes you just have to say... challenge accepted", meaning get over it and just deal with it. I can, I was going to run no matter what but I couldn't help being bummed about the rain.

So Jeromy and I decided we were going to walk over and just walk to/from stuff... but it was raining. And Jason and Laura drove, so they were gracious enough to drive us. First we headed over to the Expo. Here we were picking up our numbers, T-shirts, and then they having booths that have everything to do with running. So fun and exciting!

That's me. Jeromy took all the pictures this weekend, and there are alot of me so get ready...

Here's my new T-shirts, the white one is the one all the runners got that registered to run. The light blue one is anther shirt I bought at the Expo, they had so many cool and funny shirt. When Jason saw this blue one he said "Who's Bo?" Hahaha, very funny, no more splenda for you! These are both tech style shirts, love 'em. I also got the 13.1 magnet and the pin.

At the Expo I also pre-registered... wait for it... for next year's FULL MARATHON!!! That's right, next year in 2013 I will be running in my first Marathon that's 26.2 miles... so scary! But I've run 4 half marathons now and I feel pretty good, so we'll see what this next year brings.

After the Expo, the amazing Smith fam drove us all to the Spaghetti Factory for dinner and we all loaded up on carbs. I think I over did it in the cheese department- way over did it. My stomach was not happy with me all weekend. :o( But everything tasted so good! Here's Jason holding sweet little Hannah, she was so adorable sharing her mini Reece's peanut butter cups! She slept thru dinner!

Ok, so yeah, I ate tooo much at dinner, and with the excitement of the run, I didn't sleep very well, that usually happens, but that darn cheese did NOT help! I had about 4-5 hours of sleep. Here's Kyle, me and Laura bright and early at 6 am in the hotel lobby getting ready to walk to the starting line. They changed the route this year so it was with-in walking distance, about a mile, but Jeromy still walked us all to the starting line cause it's Seattle after all and I just wanted him there. He's so sweet! For some reason in this picture we all have scary yellow eyes!

Can I just say what a great God we have? He answers even the littlest prayers. I had been praying for just a little window of "no rain" for the morning. That morning Jeromy had checked the forecast hour by hour, and every hour said "RAIN RAIN RAIN". So we started walking to the start and there was no rain. I was shocked. The sky totally looked like it was going to rain any second. I was so happy, it just made my day. Here are the 3 of us getting ready to get in our places.

There were 22,000 or 25,000 runners in this race (can't remember the number) and it was sold out. So to have so many runners they have us start in different corals. And it's determined by what you guesstimate your finishing time to be. Kyle was in coral #3, cause he's crazy fast. Laura was in coral # 22, and I was in coral # 31. I know the corals went up into the 40's but I have no idea how many there were total. You can see coral #19 in this picture and they just go on as far as your eye can see, same with the people...

The starting line was pretty much right in front of the space needle... Laura and I...

Jeromy and I... you can really tell by my eyes how bad my sleep was- youch!

Then we were off. While Jeromy waited for us to finish, he hung out with Jason and Hannah. He also took this picture. The weather was really weird. That's the space needle, but the top is covered in cloud/fog... must be weird for the people up in the very top!

Thru out the run, I felt pretty good (bad cheese considered) and I just prayed and thanked God thru out the run for feeling healthy, for having no injuries, to spend time with my family, for my awesome mom and dad spoiling my kids back home and for the amazing weather. Not only did it not rain, but we were getting some blue skies and sun- God is so good!

I did the half marathon which is 13.1 miles, Jeromy got this picture of me running- see me in the back? I just passed the 12 mile marker, so you know I am tired and wanting this to be done...

But I was so happy about the weather I just kept smiling...

Here I am after the race, they handed out all kinds of yummy snack food at the end. I got a bagel, banana, strawberry-banana smoothie, water, Gatorade, snickers power bar and some other stuff... so good! There's the space needle again clear of the fog. And see that blue sky? It was supposed to rain all morning!

There's that cheesy smile again! Got my medal when I crossed the finish line, but now we are back at the hotel and I'm about to take a much needed shower! We were staying a second night at the hotel, so we didn't have to rush to the ferry like we have done the last 2 years. What a great run! Just feeling great after this run makes me feel pretty good about taking on the full marathon next year. Still scary tho...

After a long hot shower, and laying in bed for about 3 hours, we finally drug ourselves to the Cheesecake factory! Oh no we didn't- oh yes we did! You'd think I'd learn my lesson after last night's cheesy fiasco. Apparently not.

We got these delicious avocado eggrolls. They were so yummy. I did get a low fat dinner, but then I got a huge slice of peanut butter chocolate cheesecake... cheesecake factory style. Nope, did not learn my lesson. I did eat that cake over the course of several hours that evening. But my stomach ache also followed me thur out the day and into the evening. So lame. So I recovered from the run and my legs felt pretty good after, but my stomach was messed up all weekend. I'll learn one of these days.

Jeromy found my stats! The race started at 7am, but since I was in coral #31, I didn't officially start till 7:51am, but they have these timing chips we attatch to our shoes, and while running they have these strips over the road thru out the race, so as you run over it it's calculating the time and recording it for me to see later. Yep, sometimes technology is pretty amazing. This is one of those times. I train at a 10 minute mile, and I averaged a 10:15 mile, not too shabby!