When I started running, I was flying. I couldn't believe how good I felt. Around mile 6, I was thinking to myself that if I could keep this up, I might be able to qualify for Hawaii. I then thought well, I could either slow down and save myself for the finish or I could just see how much gas I have in the tank. I decided to see how much fuel I had in the tank. When I hit mile 13, I still felt great. I completed the first half of the marathon in 1:45, an 8:00 minute mile pace. I was on target to finish the Ironman in 10:30!!! And then as soon as I started to congratulate myself for a great race, the wheels fell off the bus. My thighs felt like someone attached a vice to them and started clamping down really, really hard.

Immediately, my pace went from an 8 minute mile to a 10:30 mile. What was an enjoyable run, quickly felt like the bataan death march. It was gruelling. But, I gutted it out and only walked through the water stations. I consistently got slower with an 11:30 mile being my slowest, but finished! I did a 4:07 marthon. My overall time of 11:21 was over an hour and a half faster than the last time I did it and well within the range that I was happy with. I was 402 overall out of 1961 people. I'm going to take at least a year off from the Ironman, but already I know that the little voice inside of my head is going to get louder and louder and soon I'll have to answer the question "I wonder how fast I could go if I only paced my marathon better?"