Sunday Flashback: My First Marathon - 2008 North Olympic Discovery Marathon

I am introducing a new staple: The Sunday Flashback!  It sounded better when it was a "Friday Flashback" (alliteration rocks) but I usually don't have much to post on Sundays so it seems to fit better into the routine there.  So you see, I've had a little baby blog since 2008 and I would like to move all of my race reports from there to here so they can populate my new "Race Reports" page.  :-)   I could just put them all in, but what would be the fun of that?  For posterity's sake, I'm going to keep them EXACTLY as I wrote them, with perhaps a bit of reflection (in italics).

So the first Sunday Flashback is all about my very first marathon - the North Olympic Discovery Marathon in Sequim, Washington (aka, the middle of nowhere). 

This did not occur today!  This occurred in June, 2008.  I started running to lose some weight in December 2007, and one day when I ran 5 miles without stopping I decided I was going to run a marathon.  There was no in-between distance (yes I know most people don't recommend this approach!).  I did do a half marathon along the way (Whidbey Island), but it was part of my training for the biggie, the full.  Doing a marathon was always on my bucket list, but I had no idea that I would fall head-over-heels in love with running along the way and that this marathon wouldn't be my last. 

I didn't write very much about it, this was long before the days of being long-winded, but here is what I did write:  

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"Well.... Laura and I finished, and I am alive!  Ran the NODM Marathon from Sequim to Port Angeles in Washington and beat my goal of finishing in less than 5 hours!  10:52 minute mile average, ranged from 8:54, which I think was a lie due to the mile marker being in the wrong place [I didn't have a Garmin yet], but other than that many miles around 9:30, plus two or three miles with walking about 12:30+.

[This is not even a Dri-Fit tank top and those pants don't even fit me!  And look at that little non-Garmin watch!  What was I thinking?]

 The first 22 miles were GREAT!  I was feeling wonderful, enjoying the perfect weather (well, didn't rain or get windy and it was a good temp though it was very very dangerously overcast!), and enjoying the scenery.  It was a pretty small marathon though, I definitely wouldn't recommend doing it by yourself.  We were out in the middle of the forest with all these cougar and bear xing signs and we could barely see another marathoner!  There were times when I was kind of hoping a cougar or bear would show up to put me out of my misery!  The majority of people did the half, I think only 300-400 people did the full.

Anyway, the first 22 miles were awesome, the last 4 miles were WAY worse than the entirety of the first 22!  It was some of the worst 45 minutes of my life!  But I was so happy to have done it, although I definitely think the half marathon is more my style.  We'll see if I ever do another one!"

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Total Time was 4:45.  I had signed up to do this with my friend Laura, but we didn't train together one single time (she lives in Portland, I live in Seattle!), so we came into it with a bit different mentality's (she had trained with run/walk and I hadn't) but it was a blast to do this race with her!

Spoiler - I DID do another one and will hopefully do my 3rd marathon this June!

It's so funny how little I knew about running then.  I didn't read blogs, have a Garmin, or subscribe to Runner's World, I didn't even have dri-fit clothes.  I wore whatever shoes were on sale at the Nike Clearance Store.  I didn't know what Body Glide or a foam roller was.  CRAZY!

Tell me stories about YOUR first race!