Our race weekend began Saturday afternoon. Marathoners needed to check in at registration the day before to have their passports checked.
We checked into our hotel, then made our way down to registration next to the falls, Starbucks in hand
Registered and ready to go! It's official.
I never get tired of this view.
Horseshoe Falls
With steaks in mind, we opted to eat at our hotel's steakhouse. Please proceed up to the tenth floor. Enjoy the view.
Our pre-race, night before dinner
Meanwhile, the troops were busy getting ready to cheer
Morning of. Alarm went off 5:30 a.m. We made our way to an egg and toast breakfast at Denny's, with a side of fruit. I forced those eggs down.
Aboard the 7 a.m. shuttle bus with our fellow marathoners, U.S. bound
The race began in Buffalo, N.Y. From there, we ran over the Peace Bridge back to Canada arriving in Fort Erie, Ontario, then we continued to run from Fort Erie, along the Niagara Parkway, all the way to the brink of Niagara Falls.
Chillin' in the athlete's tent. I'm not exaggerating - it was cold!
Sweats are off. It's go time. Standing at the start line. The announcer counted us down from ten seconds, then abruptly stopped at 4. "Wait, wait!" he said, "There's one more bus coming! We're gonna wait." About two minutes later, he counted us down again, and when he got to four, he abruptly stopped again, and said, "GO, just GO, now GO GO GO!!!" And we were off.
Crossing the Peace Bridge back into Canada at the 6 km mark. The bridge was about a kilometer long, everyone was taking pictures.
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To summarize the rest of the race, Dan and I ran the first half in 2:04, which was better than we were expecting. Two days prior, Dan jokingly sent me an article about beating Oprah's marathon time of 4:30, which is what celebrities try to do, but I honestly didn't think we would do it. Our goal was to finish. By 25 kilometers, the seamlessness of the first half of the race began to unravel. I began searching for the next rest station anxiously. By 30 km, I just wanted to make it to 35. I knew by 35 km I'd be able to finish the last 7.2 km. But a strange thing happened to me at about the 30 km mark. Running a kilometer no longer felt like a kilometer, each one felt like 2 or 3. And those last few kilometers were like running ten.
This picture was taken 42 km in by my awesome SIL Alexis. Aunt Alexis and Uncle Sean brought our girls to the finish line, which we are so grateful for. We were less than a hundred meters from completing the race here. I'm smiling because I saw Ariel and Alexis jump up in excitement when they saw us, but if you could look closer there are tears in my eyes, which leaked down my face at the finish line. Such an emotional experience. I'm also smiling because I'm almost finished. My legs are on fire.
It may look as though I'm ahead of Dan. Let me explain. At about the 35 kilometer mark, I began to suffer badly. My pace dropped, and I risked stopping to walk, and never starting up again. Dan didn't let that happen. He stayed at my side when I lagged behind, encouraging me, pushing me to keep going. An invisible tether bound us together. Though he could have gone on ahead of me, pushed the pace, he would not. We had agreed to run the race together, and he made sure I made it through. At 37/38 km, Dan really started to feel it too. He told me he didn't think he was going to have any extra push left at the finish line. I said nothing, literally, because I couldn't talk. Fast forward to the finish, the moment I saw our kids was the moment the end (to my pain and suffering) was in sight, which gave me a surge of adrenaline, and I took off sprinting. Poor Dan, who isn't a mind reader, also had to take off to catch up, and we crossed through the line at a sprint, at the exact same time. Four hours and twenty six minutes after we started the race. We beat Oprah's time.
Dan takes a moment to say hi to his girls before he realizes I'm going to beat him if he doesn't get moving
Marathon Finishers
Our number one fans
Huge thanks to my sweet husband for getting us to the finish
Race statistics for the marathon:
There were 899 entrants, 719 finishers (383 male, 335 female, 1 unknown)
Dan and I placed 304th, 305th among the finishers, overall
Dan placed 200th out of 383 men, while I placed 104th out of 335 women
Dan placed 27th out of 54 in his age category
I placed 13th out of 39 in my age category
Time: 4:26:45, avg. pace 6:20 min./km
A huge congratulations to all the runners!!!
If I could just add, you really can't judge the quality of a runner by looking at them, which proves to be true, as a general rule, in many facets of life. There was an older woman up ahead of us near the finish, in her sixties, and she was keeping pace with us, and even pulling ahead out of our reach. Gender, age...you can't judge! Sure, there are averages, but there are also outliers where all bets are off. Anyone can do anything, remember that.
My tears, at the finish, were as much about my personal triumph, as they were about my reverence for the resiliency of humanity, and the feat of our collective accomplishments. We're a determined bunch, and I felt humbled, for a moment, to become an expression of that.
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