SeeJennRun

It's here! The Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon! This is the 13th year of this race which was started as a way to honor victims lost in the Oklahoma City bombing and help raise funds for the Memorial. It is a moving experience every year and we "run to remember".

Roxanne and I have been training since January 6th beginning with a 6 mile run and in less than 48 hours we will be running a marathon, 26.2 miles! Her first, and my first one in sixteen years! I've only run two, my first one being the 1989 New York City marathon which I ran the year after Rox was born to help get off the last bit of baby weight. My goal was 4 hours and I ran 4:03. My second marathon was a couple of years later, trying to qualify for Boston (I did not) but broke 4 hours although I struggled to that finish line!

I don't know why I quit doing marathons. I was racing all the time, every weekend, every distance but my favorite was always the 5k and my goal was to break 20 minutes to make the OK record book for women, which I did a few times. Anyway, I had my 3rd and final baby in 1993, took up yoga after Sam was born and my body felt so good after yoga that I just didn't want to race like I was. I never gave up running completely, but I went from 35-40 miles per week to my current (before training for this marathon) 20 miles per week. I guess I just got so busy as the kids got older that it was really hard to get all those miles in and then when I was coaching for 5 years my weekends were always tied up at track meets so I wasn't able to meet the training group. I have never been able to do long runs alone, I think I've done 12 miles by myself but any more than that and I don't know, I would just quit, I think! I can talk myself out of anything, especially if it's painful and boring so I need my running buddies!

So, the weekend is here. It began today with the marathon Expo. My running club, the OKC Landrunners always has a booth. This year, my friend, Kari and Bill invited me to be a part of the Expo program in a Q & A session on the marathon course. I feel so out of my league and am honored they considered me, I really don't know what I will say, hopefully noone will ask me a question I can't answer and if they do, I've got Bill S and Bill G there to answer!

Anyway, it's Friday night, we are enjoying yet another Oklahoma spring hailstorm! We barely made it home in time from the Arts festival where we did some carbo loading :) and the lovely weather hit! We've had our share of hail storms this year and crazy weather, but Sunday looks gorgeous!

I hope to give you a complete race report next week! Rox and I have had some knee pain in our last couple of long runs that we're nervous about but I think race day we will just put it out of our minds as much as we can and deal with it! Her's is a bit worse than mine but I am hoping the new compression sleeves, foam rolling and Aleve will get her through! We will walk the marathon if we have to but we are crossing that finish line together!!!