.my first (only?) marathon.

Welll....I DID IT!!!!! Let the cheers, hip hip horrays, and angels sing because I, Shoshonna Lynn Roberts, finished a marathon, 26.2 miles!!!!! Let's just get this one thing straight from the start, this my friend was not easy. This my friend took strategy, guts, pain, and heart. I wasn't sure I could do it, I didn't train real well for it and let's face it 26 miles is a long freakin' way!

* mile 25ish *

The race we ran was the Whistlestop Marathon in Ashland, Wisconsin. It is an annual race that get's bigger and bigger each year. This year there were a total of 600 marathon runners.  This race is also a Boston qualifier...if you are a serious runner and curious. The area is beautiful, especially this time of year with the leaves changing colors, and right on Lake Superior. The race is on the Tri-County Corridor and is 98% trail, you literally only run about 2.2 miles in town! The scenery was beautiful, quiet, and at mile 20 got a little boring. Two of the big reasons we chose this race as our first race was: 1) it was on the cheaper side of races, about $60 and 2) the trail continued to slightly go down in elevation most of the race! So no big hills to conquer at mile 8 or 16, which is such a BIG blessing!!!

* about to cross the finish line*

Going into the race I was really nervous and continuously swearing at our friend Jim for getting me into this mess.  Dave and I were waaayyy under trained, our farthest run before the marathon was 15.6miles and that was just 2 weeks before the marathon. Usually you should run at least 20 miles once! Also the month before the marathon I only ran a total of 26 miles...the exact same amount I was suppose to run in one day! haa haaa...I could only laugh at how ridiculously hard this race was going to be. The day of the race was cloudly and rain was drizzling for a good part of the day. I was wet and cold to the bone the whole time. Things went pretty good for us until about mile 17/18 when our bodies starting getting really tired and the woods were getting old real fast. We started having to run a bit and walk a bit more frequently but we kept going...even when it hurt. By mile 20 we were sick of the woods and asking people when we could escape them. By mile 25, I didn't trust a word anyone said to me...people lie, they say you are getting close the being done...you aren't, it will still feel like a lifetime before you hit the next mile.  But we kept going until we crossed that finish line!

Our Time:

5 hours 45 min. 33 sec

(13 min. 11 sec per mile)

We weren't even sure we were going to make the 6 hour deadline and we beat it by 15 min!

The question is..would I do this again?

I'm not sure.  It wasn't as bad as I thought it would and I'm pretty competitive. 

I wonder what my time would be if I did train for it?

Maybe, I will have to find out...only time will tell!