Pat's Run

I had signed John, Nick, and I up for Pat's Run not too long ago. It's 4.2 mile run in honor of Pat Tillman. The race finishes at the 42 yard line of Sun Devil's Stadium. This was the weekend after the Boston Marathon and they stepped up security and while I saw a lot of security we didn't encounter any issues. There was something like 28k people running the run which is actually more than the Boston Marathon.

We were on a team with some people at work and someone had told us to put our finish time at 30 min (ha ha, yeah right) but they did that so we could get an earlier corral. Somehow that put us in corral 3. That is where the good of this story ends. We didn't really know when to leave to get down there, etc. So at about 6 am on Saturday we were trying to get ready and all we had in our house was 1 banana that John and I split (this will come into play later). We headed down there and parking was crazy

 

 

We ended up parking at Tempe Marketplace and walking to the start (we clocked it on the way back and it's about 2 miles). Well, I had to go to the bathroom at this point but we were hurrying to the start line and while I was trying to keep up with John my calves cramped up. We got up to the start line and they were already on corral 9. So we didn't have time to find a bathroom and we just got in line and started running.

I would say that the first 2 miles or so went pretty well. Then my foot went numb. I had one leg wrapped because of shin splints and then a compression sleeve on the other. So we had to stop and unwrap my leg.

Shortly after this picture was taken I really started to feel the lack of food. I started to just get angry. Right after you go under the 202 there is a Denny's and I thought it smelled awful and wanted to throw up and I was just getting really hot and tired.

So we continue on and my Endomondo tells me we are at 4 miles as we're turning into the stadium parking lot so I tell myself I can handle another 3 minutes and I should be done. Well, they just sit there and wind you through the parking lot!! I knew it'd been further than .2 miles and I had to pee, I was hungry, I was hot, I was getting annoyed with the people around me and all the people who were already finished. I was ready to just quit. I was done. Nick got me to the finish line where I promptly demanded a bathroom that I almost passed out in. While I was doing that, Nick got this picture.

And remember.... we then had another 2 mile walk BACK to the car. So... it was a good run, but there were a lot of things to learn from it. We'll see if we do it again or not.

From there we went to grab some breakfast at Crackers and then home to shower and take naps! We did get to do this though:

And I had this to reward me at work:

So that is done. We did 100 miles before the cruise. Honestly, we both could have probably had it done a few weeks ago but we decided to finish it together at Pat's Run. So now that goal is reached you may ask what is my motivation now?? How about this?

A few fun side notes is that I learned how to do this:

And I now have my own currency: