I had been on the fence about signing up for a full marathon. I never thought I wanted to run a 5K, why would I ever consider a full marathon. The race directors were people I had met through Labor of Love and Calico Racing in 2011. Their story was so amazing, when I saw they were hosting an event, I knew I wanted to be a part of it. The only problem with that was, the shortest distance was a full marathon and the half was my limit.
I posted on the Facebook site, "wish you had a half so I could join you." Several ultra runners, including the race director told me I should just sign up for the full. I kept dragging my feet, just didn't want to commit to 26.2 miles. I have had some pretty horrible 13.1's, I could never imagine doing twice the distance. A very wise man, Mr.Ed Ettinghausen (aka the Jester), told me to do back to back days with my longest distance and see how I felt once I was done. So I found a way to test this theory.
Shane wanted to run Mississippi Blues Marathon in January. They also had a half, so I was set! Then I started looking for something else we could do. I heard about a double even in Allen, TX to celebrate New Years through Bling Whores on Facebook. I showed the site to Shane and he said he was in if I wanted to do it. I tried to only sign up for one half and then a 5k, but the 5k was sold out, so I took that as a sign.
So in the course of 6 days, I would run 39.3 miles! YIKES!! The Jester had said to see how I felt on the end of my 2nd day and go from there to help decide if 26.2 was something I should try to conquer. Day 1 (Dec. 31st), we were greeted with rain, wind, and very cold temps. Allen, TX had received several inches of snow a week prior and some was still visible on the group upon our arrival. My finish time was 3:28. Not my worst, but not anywhere near my best either. Day 2 (Jan. 1st), while the rain was done and most of the wind, we still had the concrete sidewalk we were running on to contend with. Concrete is not a fun surface to pound on for 13.1 miles, let alone 26.2. Both of us were feeling the effects. My finish time for the 2nd day was 3:18, 10 minutes faster than the prior day.
The following day we took a nice 5k walk around a local man-made lake to keep our legs stretched out. Then it was 6 hours in the car to our next stop. This was also a test for Shane in his training for his first 50k in March and 50 miles in April. Both of us were feeling it in our feet from having to run on concrete. The rain had made it impossible to run on the side of the trail. We knew Miss. Blues was going to be hard for both of us.
We had decided to get arm warmers for both of us, and Shane had picked up a new "rain jacket." Jan. 5th greeted us with cloudy weather and the threat of more rain. We made it almost all the way through before it finally started but it was certainly cold enough. My finish time for this was 3:09, my best so far for the trip!! While Shane was tired and slower than normal for him, he too felt mostly good. We knew what we had to do that night....sign up for Beyond Limits Ultra 100mile, 50mile, 50k, marathon, 24-hour! BLU was going to be a test of our Limits!!
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