It was a foggy, cool morning. Got up at 6, ate a half banana and a tablespoon of almond butter, then dressed/stretched quietly so as not to wake any Fillmores. but Brandolyn got up to see us off. We found the park easily and got one of the limited parking spots, which soon filled up. Temps were about 33 degrees as we started out across the bridge, which was pretty slick. I decided not to wear my jacket over my running clothes and carried just my waist belt with my 16 oz. of chia-honey-lime water, some clif bloks, my iphone for Runkeeper, and my facecloth (don't ask...). The first 1/2 (down and back to Woodinville) passed quickly. I decided not to change out my liquid fuel for the second bottle, diluting the one I had at the Gatorade stops instead. Rich called me a few times with words of encouragement but I found it to be a distraction and awkward to have to dig the phone out of my pocket and break into my breathing rhythm to answer. ( I'm afraid I wasn't very polite the third call when I asked him not to call back. Kinda like a woman in labor though, right? Excusable?) With only about 100 runners, I quickly felt like I was running alone, which was great, as this was a run against only myself, what I can do, what my goals were. I wanted to run the whole way, and I wanted to finish under 5 hours. I accomplished both, only walking in and out of the bathroom stall twice, and finishing in 4:53:56.
The best part of the day was rounding the last corner and seeing 7 grandchildren jumping up and down on the bridge yelling, "Yay, Gramma! Hooray!" They all raced with me to the end, then made an archway of hands for me to run through--a gauntlet of love. I felt very supported and loved. A great way to start the new year!
