Marathon #3 in 5 weeks. Dang, who thought THIS was a good idea??? In my defense until lunch the day before I thought it was 3 in 6 weeks, but that's still not a much better idea :)

Since just before Phoenix, I've been having some weird shin issues. In Phoenix the stick guy worked it out via my calves and the Brooks people sold me new shoes - I have a very slight pronation which is pulling on some of the tendons resulting in some shin pain. Pair that with knots in my calf and we have a perfect storm. All agreed - as long as the pain is moving we're ok. Once it's stationary we have to be afraid of the possibility of it being a true shin splint or worse - a stress fracture. Luckily it's still moving. Unluckily it's more frequent and all week before leaving for NO it was giving me serious trouble. Thursday's run was less then a mile long, it just would not cooperate. I almost canceled the trip. No point in driving so far not to run. But, I decided to see what happens. Plus, let's be honest here - the finishers medal is super sweet and I wanted it!

Friday afternoon I went to the gym for a spin and swim. Walking through the locker room I caught a glimpse of my left calf. It looks...off...nothing specific just not quite right. Then I suddenly realized the source of all of my problems above – muscle atrophy from the boot! The muscle is much smaller then it's counterpart!!! I shall begin working on this post-marathon, nothing I can do about it now!

Friday night we made the long drive in to Covington (we booked the trip too late to secure a safe and reasonably priced room in New Orleans) and arrived exhausted around midnight. I'm not the best in the car so I was happy to find Andy still speaking to me by the end of the ride. We turned in pretty much immediately. Saturday we woke up without an alarm. We went to the grocery store to secure all the items I forgot to pack (pretty typical start to any trip for me). Then we had breakfast and drove into town for the expo. The expo was nothing to write home about, Houston's is much better. The stick woman wouldn't work out my calf which peeved me - she just tried to sell me a stiffer stick and told me to try it on myself. I can do that at home, I'd rather someone professional dig into it. Oh well. Then we took off walking. Probably a good 10 mile walk around the city. Good thing to do the day before a marathon! My shin and ankle would randomly lock up on me – sharp pains and unable to even walk at times. Ut-oh...



I don't want to run...I don't want to run...maybe I'll just do the half…who do you think you're fooling thinking that? It's the full or nothing...I don't want to run...



Around 5:00 we headed back into Covington, I was so tired I fell asleep in the car! Had a most delicious chicken dinner and then back to the room to prepare. I don't want to run…I don’t want to run...I'll figure it out tomorrow. No, pack NOW...but I don’t want to run...


4:00 – BEEP BEEP BEEP. Dang that came fast! I don't want to run. Get up and get going! I start getting dressed and now I'm getting into the spirit of things. I taped my knees up, then taped my shins super tight. Once I was all dressed Andy put the finishing touches on – he painted my face and put the body jewels on it. Wow, he's talented! I asked if he ever thought he'd be painting his girlfriend's face at 4AM while she gets ready to run a marathon and he confessed the possibility had never occurred to him until I pulled out the body paint that morning :) Once painted I threw on my tiara and boa and posed for some pictures. Then we finished packing and got in the car.


Now I'm in the spirit. Chatter chatter across the long bridge, super excited – it's marathon day!!! Yay!!! We get into the city and can't figure out where to park. Finally find parking and we put the finishing touches on my costume, throw on my garbage bag, pin the tiara to my head (it kept moving without the bobby pins) and off we go! Weeeee!!!! Um, still going...still going…where the F is the start line? Ut-oh...I've gotta go!!!! Still have 30 minutes till the race starts. 30 minutes...what's significant about 30 minutes? OH! I need to use my inhaler! Dig around and grab it out of the bag, try to use it as I walk to the start. Turns out I grabbed the wrong one! It's virtually empty!!! This is NOT a good start.

Finally get to the start line and the lines for the cans are long. I mean 40 people long in my corral and they won't let us in any other corrals. I grab the rest of my stuff from the bag and find that my gu flask has gone missing! It must have fallen out when I grabbed my inhaler!!! I have 4 hours worth of gus on me, thank goodness I packed a spare hours worth, just in case. I'm banking on a 5 hour race, so I'm an hour short. Guess I'll just be hungry that last hour. Finish my minor freakout, kiss Andy goodbye and head, super stressed to the restroom line. The race starts and we're...still in line. About 30 people ahead of me now. I decide to walk up a few corrals now that those are running and find a line only about 5 people long. Not too bad...For those counting, that makes 2 of my last 3 races where I missed my start! I start with whatever corral is walking by, feeling relieved yet slightly freaked about the shin / lack of inhaler / lack of food situation. Tell myself it is what it is, gotta run. And I start running. And it doesn't hurt!

Since my goal for this race was to have fun and not get sore, I decided to leave the Garmin in the car. I can't be trusted not to watch my pace when I run with it. I also didn't start the timer on my watch. I only started the interval timer – plan was to run 9 minutes / walk 1 minute from the get-go. Which I did. During the next few miles of run/walking, the following happened in no particular order:

I'm pretty sure I was proposed to – the water station volunteer got down on one knee to give me my water

A priest told me I look fabulous

I was hailed by a group of spectators as the queen "all hail the queen, all hail the queen!"

I realized maybe I wasn't being proposed to, my suitor's bowing may have been do to my now royalty status - I had inadvertently dressed as a queen without realizing it! I then realized I must have a royalty thing – the one time I don't dress as the king I accidentally dress as the queen?

I immediately jumped into Elvis mode, doing the Elvis hands at anyone who cheered for me before realizing I was not, in fact, Elvis Presley.

I saw Elvis! He was at an aid station handing out Cytomax. This very much tempted me to try Cytomax but I was good and stuck with water

I posed for countless photos. Spectators love a costumed runner. And, I love to pose. Bad combo! Some even had me do a few poses or requested ones they’d seen me do earlier!

I soon ran out of poses, I guess I'm not so creative

As we ran through the park around mile 7 I decided to go off-roading and trail ran a mile of the course. How often do you see a runner in a tiara and boa playing in the dirt?

At mile 8 I had the undying urge to run like an airplane (no idea why, and you will see this urge kept popping up), so I did. Then I saw the photographer who yelled "keep doing that!" and I did



Did I mention I'm still only at mile 8?

At mile 10 I wanted a self portrait, so I took one. I do like this picture!

Somewhere along the way I found a gu station and grabbed 2 to make up for the hour’s fuel I was lacking. Not my favorite fuel source (I like the protein in Accel Gel) but it would have to do

At mile 13 I finally found Andy, who armed me with a new inhaler

At mile 16 we were running with the halfers (just on the opposite side of the street and who were on mile 12) and in an almost angry, very forceful tone I hear "LOOK! Do you see her? She has a f-ing boa on. A BOA! And she's at mile 16 and still running. If she can do THAT with a BOA on, I want you to start running and I don't want to hear another word out of you until we cross the finish line in a mile. She's in a boa for god's sake!"

At mile 18 I see Andy again. Yay! And he has biofreeze. Woo-hoo!!!!

At mile 19 I am passing a guy and he commented that my beads were like a perfect metronome. Told me I'd actually been pacing him from behind for about 5 miles, he was coordinating his footsteps to the swishing of my beads. Thanked me for my help and being so consistent (can't figure out where my walking comes into play here) but said he couldn't keep with me anymore.

At mile 20 I decide to get my picture taken under the mile marker. I have a rule about having to run over the 20 mile marker. 20 is the wall, if you can run over the marker, you're going to finish the marathon. This time, I decided to jump over it instead. As I took a running jump, the spectators went nuts.

Right after mile 20 I switch to 5-1 run-walk intervals. The 5 is a welcome reprieve but the 1 is almost too long. Almost

At mile 21 we're running along the lake. It's so gorgeous I actually forget what city I'm in and that I'm running a marathon in full costume

At mile 22 I'm told I'm looking way too beautiful to be at mile 22 of a marathon

Then, at mile 24 it happened. From miles 18-25 it was pretty much an out and back. So, on my way back I decided to make a ruckus (ok, are you really surprised at this idea???) and cheer on every runner going the other way. High-5s, yells, encouraging words, whatever floated my fancy at that second. Well, A group of ~5 is passing and I yell something to the group. One girl yells "thank...HEY! It's YOU! OMG, guys, it's ELVIS!!!". And her whole group went nuts at the site of me. I am still in shock that I got outed as Elvis! I have no idea how she recognized me, from Houston or LV, but I was completely outed on the run course! I think this moment was the highlight of the race.

At mile 24+ Andy was up on a bridge – super cool way to watch the race and makes for great pictures! He said the best part of sitting up there was that I didn't see him and he could watch me coming for a while. He said I was honestly smiling huge the whole time, obviously having a blast.

Mile 25. Almost there. Under the mile marker I'm told "keep smiling princess - you have the best smile!"

I run with a guy who tells me this is #135 for him – he's been doing these since before I could walk. Amazing! He did tell me they never get any easier. Maybe he should wear a cape or boa? I did manage to refrain from suggesting as much

Still on mile 25. A steep but short bridge to climb. Get to the top and there's no choice but to sprint down it, the incline is sharp. Again, the urge hit. I put my arms out, started zigging and zagging down the hill yelling "WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" and at the bottom there was a dude with a video camera, cracking up. I’m probably now on You-Tube somewhere!

Mile 26 - the home stretch! Hands up, marathon #9 is in.the.bag.

Post-race. I finished and got my finishers medal (most awesome) and some food.


Then I found Andy and as we were walking around, Bowling for Soup was the headliner concert of the race. They played one of my favorite songs so we ran over and enjoyed the music and had a stranger take our picture. Unfortunately his shirt didn't show up in this picture (I wanted one before the race of the 2 of us but ran out of time). His shirt was a Christmas gift from yours truly and says "I don't do triathlons, I do a triathlete". I also forgot to forward the picture to work so I guess you can't see it anyway =P

After the song we started making our way back to the car. He wanted to stop at the port-o-cans and when he did, my other favorite song by them came on. I put my arms out and started spinning in place. Got dizzy very quickly so I decided to keep my arms out and run figure 8s around the trees. Of course Andy caught me. The look on his face was indescribable. Then he finally asked "so, 26.2 miles just wasn't enough for you? You just had to run more???".