Now that I’ve had about a day to think about the race, I’ve decided that training probably would have helped.  Whoops.

Anyway, the day started early and Steph and I were barely awake:

As usual, George was wide awake and thought it was picture time.

But it was a very nice morning and people were excited.

G was happy I was in Corral G (for obvious reasons).  The corral process went very quickly and we were running by 7:30 am (the first corral started at 7:00 am).  My plan was to go really slowly so I stayed behind the 5:00 pacer and tried to go at a 12 minute/mile pace.

I saw George at around mile 5 and gave him my iPod because people lined the course and there were a ton of bands along the way.

I really wanted to experience the race so I decided NOT to listen to music…and just try to survive.

So my plan worked until about 13 miles in.  In looking at my splits online I hit the 13.1 mile mark at a 12:21 pace or 2:41:49 into the race.  By the time I hit 17.5 miles, I’d dropped to a 13:22 pace…and I was walking.  Slowly.

THANK GOD I KNEW MY FAMILY WAS WAITING AROUND THE 18 MILE MARK.  I don’t know if I would have made it if it weren’t for them.

I was so happy to see my prego sister I cried.  And a huge THANK YOU to Jamison for taking all the race pictures of the family!!

This picture is classic me.  I’m in crazy pain and on the verge of tears, but I’m smiling.  When in doubt, smile.

I think I spent about 20 minutes talking to everyone I met up with.  At that point, I was over trying to hit any sort of time goal and just wanted to finish.

Laura, Hart and the girls brought me Gatorade.  They walked and talked to me for a while and it was really so nice.  Laura is planning on running a marathon in the next year so I will be out there cheering her on too!

It also made me cry to see my mom!  Things get so much more emotional when you feel like you might die.

I loved seeing Max too.  I could have cuddled with him for hours at that point.

I love the time sign behind me…let’s just pretend that’s when I finished.

For all of you who know someone running a marathon go cheer them on because it made all the difference for me.  Being able to look forward to seeing someone and tell them I feel like complete sh*t was really the most amazing thing.

Surprisingly, I managed to leave my family and keep going.  At about mile 25, Toya joined me!!!

I was very happy to see this sign as I approached the finish:

And then I finished…with a lightning speed of 6:33:30.  Yeah, that was a bit slower than even I anticipated.  BUT I FINISHED THE F*CKING THING AND MY MOM GOT ME A CAKE!!!

In hindsight, I could have trained about 100 times more than I did.  I know I could run the dumb thing faster, but is that going to make me sign up for another one?  Probably not.

I’M CROSSING THAT BEAST OFF MY BUCKET LIST!