Post-Grandma's: The Rest of the Weekend

Are you sick of hearing about it yet? This is the last of it, I swear. Well, I think so, anyhow. I also promise not to use the word "freaking" QUITE so often in this post. That's what I get for trying to write while dealing with my kids at the same time - after getting called away from it 20 times while writing it, I didn't realize how often that word got typed, haha.

I honestly don't have a lot to say about the aftermath. I obviously got my medal. I didn't get a shirt - they were out of my size - but they let you order it, so it'll get mailed to me. Much better than settling for a men's sized shirt (although they gave you that option if you wanted). I looked for Carly, but never saw her.

Then it was off to try to find my sweat bag, and maybe redeem my drink ticket. But after negotiating the chaos and finally getting my stuff, I was feeling kind of out of it, and the post race beer no longer sounded so good. We had a good half a mile to walk back to the hotel, at least, and I made the call. I was freezing. Let's get the hell out of here. After that, I just kind of blindly followed my parents back. We got to an escalator in the skyway that was off. I and all the runners around me thought that was cruel and unusual. Up we walked. At least it wasn't down.

My room was RIGHT next to the ice machine, so once we got back, I set my parents to filling up my tub. I got a quick ice bath (oh my god I was so COLD! I shivered uncontrollably the entire time I sat there.) and then the hottest shower I could stand. While I was cleaning up, my mom got me subway and then made me eat it - I was so not hungry. And then I spent the rest of the afternoon alone in my bed reading a book. It was nice to relax, and NOT have a million things to do post-race.

That evening, I headed out to a daily mile meet up at an Irish pub just a half a block from my hotel. I got to chat with a bunch of great people who'd run either the half or the full that day. I got to meet Nora, who is just as awesome in person as she is online. She ran an AWESOME first marathon! I ate an amazing bacon cheeseburger (which has somehow been my post-long-run meal of choice this training cycle) and have a couple beers. But it was funny - 10pm hit and all of a sudden we all looked like we might fall over asleep at any minute. The half marathon started an hour EARLIER than the full, so we were all pretty beat. I called it a night.

The next day was packing up, having an amazing brunch with old family friends, and a lot of DRIVING. It was after 7pm by the time I made it home, but I still got to spend a LITTLE bit of Father's Day with my family, who all seemed to miss me very much.

A few post race thoughts:

• I am ridiculously thankful that my stomach played NO PART WHATSOEVER in my race.
• I think that my loopiness at the end had a lot to do with how much I gave to the course.
• Not once have I been disappointed in not actually breaking 5 hours.
• For the record, my garmin says my moving time was 4:57 and change - makes me happy :)
• Now instead of just THINKING I have a sub-5 in me, I KNOW it.
• I ran today. I feel really good. I was sore post-race, but not unmanageably so. That said, driving for 8 hours isn't necessarily the best way to spend the day after a marathon.
• Next time, I hope we can actually organize a blogger meetup. There were lots of people I hoped to see, but didn't get to. I guess you can't just hope to run into people you only know online in a sea of thousands. I caught myself looking for them all though!

Now, on to training for Twin Cities!! I'm tired just typing that :)