MCM - race recap - part 1 (of many)

The night before, I did well. I only woke up at 11:45, thinking I had missed the alarm, and then again at 3:45. Not bad for a 4am wake up call. I laid in bed waiting for the alarm to go off, snuggled a little with Lyle as he prayed over me.  I finally got out of bed a little after four. Since everything was laid out the night before, it was easy. Best advice for the morning of your race, because my brain really wasn't working well. I started to get dressed and would find the minutes flying by... like it took 5 minutes to put my shoes on - WHAT? I think I just wanted them to be perfect and the next thing I knew, 5 minutes GONE.

Before I headed downstairs, I went into the kids room and kissed them and told them I would see them at the finish. I had asked them each to pray for me at a specific time and reminded them. Brock said he was praying for me right now. How awesome was that. I gave Brock mile 15 and Kiera mile 19.


I had my belt packed since Wednesday, so I just double checked that to make sure it was still together. Grabbed my Gatorade from the fridge and then wondered why I had put it in the fridge, by the time the race started, it would be warm.


I started to freak out that my throw away clothes might hang me up, so I practiced... 3 times. I wish I had snapped a pic of my out fit... it look pretty funny. The throw away pants were fresh from the Goodwill - bright red, circa 1985 with half zips at the ankle. And my top was just and old UA top that one of my youth gave me like 4 years ago that was way to big for me. After I practiced (both from the standing position and the seated position), I decided 3 times was enough. I posted one last note on FB and then started to pace listening to old hymns. Very calming.

My neighbor E was running it with TNT in honor of his daughter M (one of Kiera's best friends) who had is a cancer survivor was meeting me at my house at 5:30 for our amazing shuttle driver Bob. E arrived and our giddiness was contagious if any one else had been up to listen to us. Bob arrived right on time and we headed to the Pentagon at 5:30am.

Bob was very calming in the car as I talked continuously. I did give E a couple of seconds to talk. As we approached our turn off, it was blocked... and Bob held his composure as he looked for another entrance. Thank God we had a sane person driving. I would have freaked out and started to cry. I was slightly nervous, but Bob delivered us to where we needed to be. We parted ways and E and I made it to race village. I am SO glad E was with me. Walking with all of those people into race village was very intimidating. He was just what I needed to be slightly calm.

As we approached race village, I could hear praise music. Apparently the Navy chaplain and Army chaplain had just given sermons and a local praise band was rock'in out - NICE! E needed to find the TNT check-in booth and we were sent to the finish line. We walked miles passed the corrals, past the start line to Charity Village only to find out that it was back where we had started. (This long walk will come back to haunt me later). The bonus was that we warmed up during this walk.

As we started back to race village, the sun started to rise - beautiful sunrise - I started to get a better idea of all of the racers. Wow, this was going to be crowded - especially for the one chic that does not like crowds....