Valley Thaw Out Marathon

 I initially registered for the half marathon because I have run it several times. The marathon is new this year and was originally advertised with a 5-hour time limit. I knew that was way beyond my abilities so reluctantly settled for the half. A few weeks later my friend, Alice told me she tried to register for the half, but it was all full. So, she registered for the full marathon, not really wanting to do the whole distance. Soon after, I noticed that they had changed the time limit to a generous 8 hours. I knew I could probably do that even if I walked the whole way. I tried to switch my registration to the marathon but got a message that it was too late to switch. A few days later I got a notice that if anyone wanted to drop out of the half to allow those waitlisted to get a chance, they could contact the race director. I talked with Alice and we decided it would be fun if we ran together. I emailed the director and switched to the full marathon. The day before the race, Alice switched to the half because her back hurt. She is a faster runner than I am, but I was looking forward to trying to stay with her most of the way. But that was not to be. There were only 34 runners doing the full marathon and they were all young enough to be my grandchildren, and a zillion times faster than I am. But that's OK. They took off and I was in last place in the first mile, which is typical. After a couple of miles, I found that my feet were really starting to hurt. It seemed to get a little worse with each mile. But I took it in stride and did a lot of short runs followed by periods of walking. My pace didn't seem to change much whether I walked or ran, and I could see I was on a pace to finish in time. I was so happy to see that a lot of the water had receded from that tunnel, and I was able to avoid getting wet feet. Although as I went through the tunnel for the second time, on the return course, I considered putting my feet in that icy water because by mile 17 or so, I was really having serious foot pain. I kept telling myself it's only a couple more hours, I'll live through it. The wind came up once out on the Springer system, and I was really happy I had brought my windbreaker with me. It kept me at the perfect temperature. It started out a gorgeous blue-sky day and was cooler and cloudy by the end. But still, a beautiful course with the mountains towering above me. I finished with 20 minutes to spare. Not a very good time, but still a finish. I'm so glad I upgraded to the marathon. It showed me that first I need to buy different shoes, then do some more training in the new ones. I need to pick up my pace if I want to finish the Anchorage Marathon in June. I should have plenty of time to remedy the foot and training problem by then. Plus, through the whole race I was also suffering with the blasted head cold that had not improved a bit since Tuesday. I was so happy to see that finish line!