bloggin' bout bloomsday

I came:

We had a lovely drive up to Spokane on Saturday morning. Just me and my boo. We hooked my ipod up to the car sterio and played my running playlist the whole way up there. Its about 99% Christian music. Dennis loves Third Day and insisted that I play them over and over again. lol. I had a sack FULL of snacks, and 4 liters of water. Carb loading, and hydration is serious business.

Got in to town and discovered that we had a flat tire. Dangit! We were right by a tire shop, so we went in and had it checked out. No hole or anything, they inspected it and aired it up, and sent us on our way.

I saw:

We found our way down to the convention center, and I picked up my race packet. It was seriously so exciting! All the people, and the chaos!! It rocked. Dennis was blown away by the crowd. I dont think the "55,000 registered runners" really sank in with him.

We walked the trade show, which was super cool! Then we went to our hotel to get
checked in.

I got my D-tag (timing tag) hooked on to my shoe. I wanted to be as prepared as possible.

 

Here is my OWN official race number!!

 

We ventured around downtown for a while, then I asked Dennis to drive me around the race course. Dumb idea. With the map in hand, I guided him through the route. I became very overwhelmed. It was sooooo long!! And the hills???? Impossible!!!

It was discouraging, to say the least. But the morning of the race, I woke up with a better attitude!

I conquered:

Here I am, with a smile on my face, getting ready to line up.

 

And away I went.....

I told myself I would run the first 3 miles, and I did. It was hard. There were 2 hills in the first 3 miles. Killer hills! They sucked. It was really crowded, hard to maintain a good pace. The first 3 miles were loooooooong. The longest 3 miles ever! At the end of the 3rd mile was a down hill, so I just kept running. I ran, pretty much all the way to the bottom of mile 5... DOOMSDAY HILL!! I walked Doomsday Hill. I hate hills! So I didnt feel guilty about walking it. There was a lot of entertainment a long the way.

I was running alone, and I felt lonely. But I dont know what I would have done with a partner either. I am used to running alone. But running alone in a HUGE sea of people.... its wierd.

At the top of the hill, I started running again. I ran into a friend of mine at the top. He was at one of the houses and they were cooking pancakes for the runners and handing them out. Too funny.

The last 2 miles were loooooong. I kept thinking to myself "I know we are getting close" "arent we?" It felt like it took forever to get to the finish line. I was a at a very slow jog by this point. My fat, yes I said my fat.... my fat actually hurt! It hurt from bouncing up and down for an hour. Everytime I would pick up the pace, it would hurt my fat parts. My right boob hurt too. Sometimes if I wanted to go faster, I would hold my boob and run. I held my stomach and ran a little too. I didnt care what I looked like. There were people in costumes, cross dressers, ugly pink pigtails, naked people, etc.

You know what the best sound in the world is to a bloomsday runner???

Chariots of Fire!!

They play it about 1/2 block from the finish!! It rocks! As soon as people hear it, and turn the corner to the finish line... they just started hooting and hollering and sprinting toward the finish!!!! Its a downhill to the finish, its soooo funny!!!

I was glad to be done. I just wanted to get my shirt, and go find Dennis. I had a perma grin all the way through the shirt line.

Behold!!! The finisher shirt!! ONLY finishers get these shirts!!


My time: 1 hr 40 minutes... not too bad, but definitely something to beat next year.

And that is, in short, my first Bloomsday experience.

I will spare you the details about how I ate too much for the rest of the day, and spent the night in stomach pain and throwing up. And had to cancel plans with one of my BFF's the next day, and couldnt move and spent all day in bed, eating only applesauce.....