San Fran Marathon, What a Beast!!

She is truly a beast!
She is relentless, aggressive, and determined to break you!!
She mocks you with long, slight inclines that leave you thinking, "hey, this isn't so bad!" Then, she gives you what you, in your tired haze, think is a "gift' in a long downhill. Now she knows she has you in her trap and it's time to go for the kill. You turn a corner and see unending uphill. You doubt yourself, you question your sanity, you wonder if you will make it to the end. She laughs, you can just sense it. You hear her laugh, and muster all you have to keep going.
Repeat this cycle over and over, for 26.2 miles.
She can sense your determination and ups her antics. She decided to switch Electrolyte drinks this year, knowing that most people train w/Gatorade, she offers you some sort of milky white drink. You drink, because to make it to the end, you have to. She laughs again, knowing it's only a matter of time now. And then it hits you. Stomach cramps. She laughs again, knowing what happens after the cramps. You give a little to her, letting her laugh as you run for the porta potties. This just angers you, and makes you more determined. What she doesn't know is that you came to her party knowing how she likes to play. You know how brutal she can be. What she doesn't know is that no matter what, no matter how dirty she decides to play, you will keep going. That is all you have to do for her to lose, and you to win. Just keep going.
Not only do you keep going, you have fun. You know you have the upper hand because you faced her w/o nerves or fear this go round. You know you can keep going, and you make the choice to enjoy every second of her tricks, adapt, re-evaluate goals as necessary, and keep going.
And we did.
I am learning that part of running long events is being adaptable. No race is the same twice. You have to be willing to roll with the hand you have on that day. Today, we ran a great race. For 23 miles, it was one of the best run marathons we have done. We held back early. We ran smart. We stayed on pace to come in under 5 hours right up till the last 3 miles. I kept looking at my watch saying "if I had any energy left at all, we could still pull this off", but I didn't have anything left, other than stomach cramps. Lets just say those new, powerful thrust inducing compression shorts were jet propelled from mile 16 on. I apologize to all runners behind me. There was a lot of just cranking up the music and letting the body do what it needed to do, then looking at the husband like "dude, really, that's gross". He was in his zone and didn't know I was implicating him.
So with 3 miles left, we adapted, re-evaluated goals, silently. We both new meeting our time goal was out the window, beating last years time was out the window. A win for today was finishing. We fought hard for it, believe me. The best part is....we got the same medal and foil blanket as every person that finished ahead of us. The same medal and foil blanket we would have gotten if we came in at 4 hours and change.
We ran smart, gave 110%, and we finished.
That's a score of 2 Latham's, 0 San Fran Beast.
That is the final score, there will not be another repeat. We like a beating, but we aren't stupid!
Brian needs the computer right now to order Chinese food, and that seems much more important to me right now than uploading pictures.....so that will have to wait till tomorrow.
If you were out there running today, we hope you had a great run!