Des Moines Marathon

Sunday morning, I ran in the Des Moines Marathon. The race started at 8:00am. Race conditions were very good, sunny with a starting temperature around 40 degrees. Heather met up with Chad, Shay, Nathan and Aaron to cheer me on. Here I am, in all black, right before mile 3. We started downtown, did a loop in the East Village and then headed up Grand into some hills!
After we the hills we take Grand to Polk Blvd. Here I am coming up to mile 8, I am still all smiles!

Going across mile marker 9.

From Polk we head down Kingman to Drake, take a lap around Drake's famous blue track and then come back down Kingman to Polk Blvd. Here I am just past mile 15...over half way!
Two thumbs up and a smile!

We head back down Polk Blvd, past the Art Center and hop on the bike path that goes into Waterworks Park. We make a big loop in Waterworks and the go across Fleur to Gray's Lake. My parents, my sister and her daughter Morgan were there to cheer me on as I got into Gray's Lake. We make a loop around the lake and they were cheering me on as I head out of the lake. Then we get on MLK and go down to 3rd and head to the finish. Heather, Chad, Shay and the boys planned on cheering at MLK, as they were getting there a train pulled up and stopped. So they parked and got out and walked around the train. In the picture below you can see the train on the left and Shay and Nathan walking around it.

...they made it in time to cheer me on.

There I go down the street to the finish. The marathon finishes on the same path as the half-marathon, so the walkers on the right of me are finishing up the half-marathon.

...and walking back down the tracks to get back to the mini-van!

At the finish, Nathan told me how good I did and how he saw me wearing my black jersey with a lion on it. Then he decided to call me "Lion Runner"

I finished in 2:51:21. That is a personal best for me, so I was pretty pleased! All in all, the race went well, I am pretty sore today. My legs, my toes and my jaw hurt this morning when I woke up. I chewed gum during the race, I planned on spitting it out but ended up chewing it the whole time. It was a great distraction but made for a sore jaw. Big Thanks to Heather for being so supportive and cheering me on. Big thanks for my cheering squad, it was great to have you out there and yelling for me!