I conquered 26.2

My legs are a little stiff today, but there is a smile on my face! Just over 24 hours ago I conquered one of the biggest feats I have ever attempted - a full marathon, 26.2 miles.

The morning of the race, I was up early, and ready to roll. Traffic getting to the race was a little delayed, and we were detoured around a crime scene. I was getting nervous that we weren't going to make it. Due to my parking in an illegal parking spot in the police department lot, we made it to gear check, the port-o-pottie, and the start line just in time.

Beth and I had talked about trying to stay at a 10 minute mile pace for the first 10 miles. And that is just what we did. I felt really good going along. At mile 6 I grabbed some of my power jelly beans and kept moving. Between mile 10 and 11, I saw my awesome family! Check out the girls' shirts! I was so happy to see them, and kept moving.

My best friend, Rebecca and her family came too. Apparently, they saw me at mile 11, because she took this great picture, but I missed them.

At mile 11.5 we broke off from the half-marathoners. Beth and I were walking through the water station, when another marathoner said to us, "this is where is gets lonely girls." Great, buddy thanks for the encouragement. He then told us this was his 9th marathon, and he knew we could do it. That's more like it.

I was feeling pretty good, until between 14-15 when I got the worst IT band pain down my entire right leg. I stopped and used a tree, and laid down in someone's first yard to stretch. Beth and I had a nice laugh about that point, because I said, "We didn't come here to walk," to which she replied, "well I came to walk a little bit." So we did walk a little bit after that. We ran through gravel for a while, and I got a small pebble in my shoe, which eventually led to a large blister right on the bottom of my foot. That irriatated me a little bit!

Just after mile 23, when we had only a 5K left, our family and friends were there again. My girls ran a little bit with me, and enocuraged me.

Beth and I stayed together until about mile 24. I then felt so sore that I just wanted to kick it up and finish. I was only a little ahead of her, but I knew she would finish, and I would see her at the finish line.

Right before the last corner and the finish line, all my family and friends were there again! I was so thrilled to be done. I was a little disappointed with my finish time of 5:11:46, but only because my Garmin said 4:59:35. I forgot that it stops everytime I stop. (So I guess we stopped for about 10 minutes along the course.)

Here is one last picture....
I could not have done this marathon without him. He was there for me for the past 16weeks of training, whether it was watching the girls while I was out on long runs, or rubbing my back and legs after the runs. As soon as I saw him I got so teary-eyed. He is awesome.

One last shout-out - thanks to Rebecca for the awesome pictures. Chad is not a great photographer, so I am glad you were there!

The Best Day!

The girls did not have school today for Teacher Institute! Chad and I always scramble to figure out what to do with them when there is no school, and today was no different. They stayed home with Dad for the morning, and he brought them to me at work when I got out of court. We then spent the afternoon just us "girls." I've been telling Olivia that she could have my Taylor Swift Fearless CD, but I keep forgetting it at work. She reminded me today to bring it. We brought it in the car, and listened to it between each stop. After a quick lunch at Panera, we went to Great Clips where they got their new summer haircuts! They look so cute, if I do say so myself. The picture is a little grainy, because it is from a cell phone, sorry! After shopping most of the afternoon, we heard The Best Day play on the Taylor Swift CD. I was reminded how great it is to be a mom to these beautiful, funny, smart, precious little girls! I am so proud of them, and truly had the BEST DAY with them! It also reminded me how great my mom is too! Here is the video of The Best Day with the lyrics. Such a great song!

What will I do at 32?

On Saturday I turned 32. I am not one who worries about getting another year older (at least not yet anyway)! Tonight on my run I started to think about what I want out of my 32nd year. What do I want for myself? My family? What plans do I have and what are my dreams? Here's to 32:

1) At 32 I will run my first marathon! I can't wait for this challenge and adventure. I am looking forward to sharing the day with several of my running buddies, but especially looking forward to crossing the finish line with Beth by my side, and as Beth always says hopefully with our arms raised high! If all goes well, I may also run my 2nd marathon in the fall!

2) At 32 I will pray over my children each and every night. I will pray for their todays, tomorrows and forevers.

3) At 32 I will celebrate 10 years of marriage to my best friend and love of my life.

4) At 32 I will walk 60 miles in 3 days so that one day we may all live in a world without breast cancer. I did this at 31 too, and it is still one of the best experiences of my life.

5) At 32 I will welcome a new niece or nephew into the world! I can't wait to meet Trent and Carrie's new little one in September. I will also welcome the births of the children of 2 close friends.

6) At 32 I hope to do better in keeping up with birthdays and anniversaries.

7) At 32 I will continue to represent the wrongfully accused and some "rightly" accused and vow to do my best to make sure that everyone gets the justice they deserve, whatever that may be.

8) At 32 I hope to keep a secretary for the entire year! 31 was a rough year for me with secretaries. I believe we went through 4, or was it 5? Shelley is definitely a keeper though!

9) At 32 I hope my children to teach my children to love life, love Jesus and love each other.

10) At 32 I hope to have a girls getaway weekend with my sisters! We haven't had one in several years, and I miss my sisters!

I am looking forward to 32!

Run Jamie Run

My birthday is coming up! I love birthdays, mine, friends, family, it does not matter! I just love to celebrate those close to me. I am really excited for this birthday, because it is going to be a really busy but fun day! Olivia has a gymnastics meet, which is always enjoyable! She is doing so well and its fun to cheer her on. Then we have a dinner auction fundraiser for the day care the kids went to when they were little. We do all the legal work for WCLS and the dinner is always an enjoyable evening. After that, it is out for another fun Boobalicious Babes fundraiser night! We will be doing our Woodstock Pub Crawl and hoping to raise even more money for our 3 day walk. I am going to sidetrack for just a second, and ask if you have made your donation to my 3 day account yet? If not, will you seriously consider a donation so that one day we will have a world without breast cancer??

But, back to the title of this post. My awesome hubby gave me my birthday present early! I recently crashed another ipod, and have been left using my cell phone for my music. So, Chad got me a new ipod nano! Its my favorite color GREEN, and on the back he had it engraved with Jamie Wombacher and Run Jamie Run! I cannot wait to run tonight and try it out! My marathon is quickly approaching and this gift could not have come at a better time! Isn't it so cool?

I never thought I would say it, but I think I am a marathon runner!

The past month my life has been so hectic between work and life at home with the girls, that it seems like I have only been getting in 1 or 2 runs during the week, and my long run on the weekend. Needless to say, that is not the best way to train for a marathon. I struggled through my long runs as a result, but generally have kept up with them. This week I knew we were planning a 20 miler on Saturday, but I didn't even make it to the gym one time. I was dreading the 20 miler.

Then on Thursday, I got a call from Haley's school saying that she was sick and needed to be picked up. Luckily, Chad had a cancellation and was able to go pick her up. I had nothing on my calendar at work for Friday, so I agreed that I could stay home with her Friday, while Chad went out to some appointments. Most of the week was beautiful and in the 60s, but looking ahead toward Saturday the forecast showed rain and snow and colder temperatures. Chad said he would be home by noon on Friday, so I talked Beth into doing our long run on Friday instead of Saturday.

WHAT A GREAT IDEA! It was beautiful out, in fact I wore shorts and a t-shirt. So, off we went for a 10 mile out and back on a really pretty trail. We did the first 10 in 1:44. Funny side note to add here .... at 10 miles we stopped to stretch, and I thought I better check my phone just in case work called ... I love my job...I love my job... I love my job...sorry, sidetracked. I noticed that my phone had been posting to facebook the letter D or DDD, or DD. Not once or twice, but well over 250 times. I also apparently sent the same thing to a client that had e-mailed me. Don't worry I apologized to her today! I also had an urgent message from work. We had to stop for about 10 minutes so I could call a detective and a client and make arrangements to have a search warrant executed.

But after 10 minutes, we were back on our way. At this point, I accidentally hit the start button on my Garmin even though it was on autostart, causing me to lose some of our mileage, and time. That was frustrating:) The next about 4 miles went pretty well, and then alternatively Beth and I would have a pain here or there (at one point I had some dreaded stomach issues) so we walked a little, and then ran a little. We probably ended up walking about 2 miles total. The bottom line was that we finished 20 miles, and if I can finish 20 miles I know that I can finish a marathon and officially call myself a marathon runner. I also burned over 2100 calories, which was pretty cool. We have one more 20 miler before our race; I am sure we will finish that 20 miles without walking!

Just one of those days....

Do you ever have one of those days? You don't feel like working out but you know you have to. Yesterday my marathon training plan called for a short 2 miles. Normally, I would look at 2 miles on the schedule and run 4 to make it worth my while. Not yesterday. It snowed a lot and I didn't feel like going out to the gym, so I decided I was just going to run on my old treadmill. It was only 2 miles, how bad could it be?

After dinner I made a comment that I was debating whether I was going to go downstairs and run or go up to bed and watch Biggest Loser. I then said that I knew if I went upstairs I would just blow off running for the night so I could not choose that option. A couple minutes later Haley told me to "just blow it off Mom." Great, even she knew it was going to be one of those days.

Finally I made it to the basement for the worst 2 miles I could imagine. Right away my knee was hurting, then I felt like I couldn't get enough air, I was sweating like a pig before .25, and I just could not focus on running. It was painful and hard and it was ONLY 2 miles. What the heck had gotten into me? I worried the entire time that if this 2 miles was so horrible, how was I going to do 18 this weekend. When the treadmil said 2 miles. I turned it immediately off and said goodnight to the horrible, terrible, no good, very bad workout. I did follow-up the run with shoveling, which felt surprisingly good.

I am going to chalk it up to one of those days...and hope and pray that the next workout will be much much better.

Maui 1/2 Marathon = Personal BEST!

It has now been 1 week and a day since I finished the Maui Oceanfront 1/2 Marathon. For the past week, I was just too busy relaxing and enjoying the beautiful Maui weather and terrain to update my blog.


This was right before the race started!

I am THRILLED to report that I set a personal record in the 1/2 marathon. I ran my first 1/2 marathon in October, and finished in 2:09:59, which was under my goal of 2:10. This time my goal was simply to beat that time and set a personal record. I started out feeling really good, and set a pace of just over 9 minutes a mile. I wanted to keep the pace at 9:30, and did a pretty good job. Thanks to a great physical therapist, my IT Band did not bother me at all!

Running hard (near the 9 mile marker)! Look at the beautiful ocean I ran next too. I even saw a whale breech during the first 2 miles. Thanks to my friend, Sara, for the great picture. Every time that I saw Sara and Chad cheering me on, I smiled and pushed a little harder!

Somewhere around mile 10.5 I started to get a little distracted and tired. I could not push myself to get below 10 minutes/mile no matter how hard I tried. The mind games started and I tried to focus on finishing strong, and then it happened.....

I often talk about how "true" marathon runners will just urinate on themselves to avoid having to stop. First off, I do NOT consider myself a "true" runner. But I almost had no choice, the more I tried to concentrate and tell myself that I did not have to pee, the more I felt like I was going to pee down my leg! Luckily, with 1.5 miles left there was a water station and a port-a-potty. If you know me, you know I am not a huge fan of port-a-potties anyway, and on this day, it was absolutely disgusting!! I will not go into details here, but suffice it to say I nearly threw up as well. So I wasted 30 seconds in the NASTY port-a-potty and was on my way to a strong finish. My final time (including the port-a-potty stop) 2:03:12. Early on in the race, I thought I might make it in under 2:00, but I did not, and nevertheless, I was so HAPPY with my finish. My friend, Beth, often talks about finishing strong with your arms in the air in victory, and I did just that!

After the race I got a massage. I finished just as my friend, Dani, crossed the finish line for her first 1/2 marathon. So the cheering squad and I got in the car to go cheer on Dani's husband, Justy, as he finished the full marathon. (Justy and I were supposed to run the full marathon together, but after I was injured, I decided to do just the 1/2.) We caught up to him with about 4 miles left in the race. He was walking and looked tired and ready to quit. I decided to put my running shoes back on and finish the last 3 miles with him, a la Biggest Loser. You know, when the friends or family show up during their run to help run a portion of the marathon and encourage them! I tried to encourage Justy, and help him finish strong. He was swollen and beat, but I did manage to get him to run for a little while when the professional photographer was on the road, and to run the last 1/2 mile. He finished a marathon and I am proud of him! Later that day, we walked about 4 miles down the beach. So my total for the day with walking and running was about 20 miles. I am SO ready to train hard for Kenosha!