megathon completed!

Whew! I am such a big believer in visualization and I can honestly say that this day was a hard one to visualize. I actually ran two 1/2 marathons in 2 weeks and in pretty good time if I do say so myself. Here's a rundown of the event on Saturday.

My team's hotel was on the east side so I had about a 15 minute drive downtown in the morning. I got up at 5 to get ready and eat some breakfast. Luckily they had oatmeal and bananas and I even got a hard boiled egg! :) I didn't have any problem making it to IUPUI to park and got a sweet spot about a block from the finish line for free! I read a book for a little while to waste some time before heading to the start area. We didn't have to be in our corrals until 7. The biggest struggle of the morning was what to wear. It was cold and windy and I couldn't stand out side for an hour in a tank top. So I kept my longsleeve on and decided to keep it on. The crowds started to come and come and come. It's really hard to imagine 35,000 people lined up for a race! I had a good warm-up and made it to corral L. I thought for sure I'd see someone I knew and sure enough I did. Katy McClure and I grew up in the same church and did 4-H together and she was in my corral! Very cool.

Finally it was time to start. It only took me 10 minutes to get to the start line and then we took off. My first mile was slow, which I wanted, but it was really slow. My competitiveness took over and I started to pick it up and got my race up to about 9:30. There was lots of live music and it was just an enjoyable time. Getting to the speedway was so cool! If you've never been there it's hard to imagine how big it is, but it's huge! I felt like a VIP getting to go inside. I was starting to get warm so I decided to switch my bib to my tank and take off the long sleeves. That distracted me for a while on the 2.5 mile loop. When we exited IMS we were already at 8.6 miles. I was definitely more tired than the Nashville run, but managed to push on even though my pace was slowing a little. If I maintained a 10 min pace I would be at about the same time. I decided to pick it up for the last 1.5 miles and managed to finish at 2:06.50. I was very happy with that! After getting my snacks, I went to the reunion area and waiting for my mom and grandma. It took a while, but they found me. My grandma was so proud, which made me feel good. It was so cold and windy still, though. We decided to head to lunch, which very nice to visit with everyone. Eating was good too - I got to have sweet potato fries!

Overall, I'm very glad I set this goal and accomplished it. My body will be glad to be done, though. Here's to more items getting checked off the bucket list and hopefully encouraging you to do the same!