Wednesday, May 13, 2009

26.2 miles--Uff-da!

This last weekend was the Fargo Marathon. It was a lot of fun! I ran the marathon relay with three friends from church and we all did really well. (Katrina and I ran the 5.5 portions and Daiko and Jared ran the 7.5 portions). Our team actually placed 52nd out 378 teams! Not to shabby eh? I was really happy with my time. I finished with 50:30. That's a 9:11 split time.

Here's me warming up with the kids. I was SO nervous. There were literally hundreds of people there. I actually muffled our exchange. I didn't see Daiko cross the line because there were so many spectators/people waiting for their exchange. I didn't even hear them call out our number because it was so loud. Luckily our friend Mike was there and called Steve on the cell phone and asked, "Hey, where's Sarah? Daiko's done and looking for you." I found him shortly after and started my leg. I lost all nervousness and started my leg booking it.


The first 3 miles were great, I actually checked my watch and saw I was running an 8 min mile. It was so fun--I swear everyone in Fargo was on the streets cheering everyone on. Like it was a parade or something. There were even garage bands playing pump music. I was wearing my Bears toque (because it was 33F) and people were yelling "Go Bears" "We love Chicago" (I think they thought I was from Chicago because people come from everywhere for this). I just played along with it and yelled, "Woo-hoo Chicago" and "Yeah Bears".
The 4th mile on was harder. I started to slow down, but finished the last 1/2 mile pretty strong. Here's me approaching the end of my leg:

Like I said it was a ton of fun. Katrina really wants me to do the 1/2 marathon next year with her. Here's the team. Our total marathon time was 3:52:50