My husband swears that the time I spend running a marathon simply FLIES by as he watches all of the comings and goings of the staff and successive events and finishers.  I’ll just take his word for it on that one—to me, a marathon can seem endless.

Endless, and not always terribly interesting.  But, in the event you can snag a piece of trivia or useful information from my report, I beg your indulgence for the next few hundred words.

I will say this for myself: this time around I did a really good job getting past all of the things that could normally have tripped me up for the duration of the event.  Things like not having enough port-o-potties for the marathoners so I couldn’t go one last time before the gun went off, and my sensor reporting no signal so I was trying to fidget with that as people at the start line crammed in and elbowed me like crazy, my running gadget not working at the start line so I was perpetually a half mile off on my time and distance calculations.

These things I acknowledged and let pass.  That was pretty darn amazing.

The weather was something I just wasn’t sure of at the start line.  I had a ton of glucose with me—I didn’t have enough the last marathon I ran—so I was happy to have an extra pocket in my shorts to stash more stuff!

Because I wasn’t sure how I was going to fare in the relative humidity and the route I’d never run before (unknown hills and terrain), I wanted to be a little high to stay on the safe side so I could finish the event without having to walk home.

You’ll see a lot of 200 numbers here, but then you also need to know that I was on a lowered basal and consumed about 125 grams of carbohydrate in the four and a half hours it took me to finish the marathon… which is about how many grams I eat on a normal day, so that tells me I was wise to raise my comfort zone this time around.

I had a few bites of oatmeal (forgot a spoon so I drank it from the hotel paper cup) and a Larabar after I woke up; I only took just a little insulin to cover that.  You’ll see I started at 257; I still had some active insulin left from that breakfast bolus and I came down as I started to run.

My sensor had been relatively accurate prior to the marathon, so I didn’t check as often as maybe I would have.  I did have trouble regaining my pace after I stopped to check one time, so I was glad for the sensor’s relative accuracy that day.

153         5:00       

208         5:45am

____ MARATHON START: 7AM____

257         7:50

204         8:45

204         9:10

161         10:30 (right before it started to rain!)

____ MARATHON FINISH: 11:30AM____

The rain at the last hour was a refreshing change from what I’d been used to the previous hours.   And, I figured it washed some of the sweat away.  I wasn’t up to checking at that point, anyway, which is good: a raindrop will ruin a strip.

Anyway, it really was a beautiful course and I got to spend some quality time with my extended family who lives in the Midwest and drove to Madison to see us over the holiday.  It was nice to see them at a non-life-changing-event like this; stress was pretty low for all of us and we really had a fun time.

Maybe I’ll do this one again next year.

As for the marathon itself, I still feel simply grateful that I can run a marathon.  Not everyone would be able to put up with it. 

They’re kind of a lot of work.

But 100% worth it!