GO! St. Louis Marathon Relay
4/7/13
St. Louis, Mo
3 Speed Demons & Me
Overall Finishing Time: 4:17:06
My Time for Leg 4 (about 6 miles): 1:03:14
Tim and I asked Leah and Travis to do this relay with us way back in November. I just thought it would be a fun way for all of us to run something that wasn't quite as ambitious as a half marathon, but still had the excitement of a big race. This definitely hit the spot!
We headed up to St. Louis on Saturday afternoon. After our traditional lunch at Olive Garden and little shopping, we made our way to the Expo. Packet pick up was simple and easy. The only hitch we hit was they didn't have Travis' t-shirt size. They were seriously going to try to give him a Medium when he requested XXL. Um, yeah. After some annoying exchanges with some cranky ladies, Travis managed to charm one of them into giving him a half marathon shirt in the correct size. Travis is pretty darn good at charming folks! :)
The only concern I had about this race was the transportation. We were going to have to use the Metro to get to the various relay stations and I'm just really bad with directions. Tim suggested that we go on to Delmar (where my relay station would be) so that Leah and I would get an idea of where it was, etc. It actually worked out nicely because we ended up eating at Pi, which was super tasty. I am actually craving a Pi'oneer Salad as I type this! After dinner, we went back to the hotel and planned our meeting time, etc for the next morning. We were all set for some fun!
Okay, so I'm not really a morning person. I'm usually pretty quiet and cranky when I have to get up early. The problem with doing these type of races is that the mornings come quick and early. The alarm going off at 4:45am did not make me happy! After ignoring it for a few minutes, I did finally manage to get my butt moving.
We met up with Leah and Travis around 6am near the start line. Leah was doing the first leg, which was about 6 miles. We got her settled in and headed towards the Metro to get to the first relay area for Tim. It was really weird leaving Leah behind. I'm so used to being with her at he beginning of these events.
Leah & Travis before the start of Leah's leg of the marathon.
Getting to the next relay station was pretty easy. It was early, so the Metro was not crowded at all. (This would change drastically later on that day!) We figured Leah would finish in about an hour, so as we got closer, Tim got ready and we watched really closely as the runners started coming in. Travis spotted her and Tim was pumped up and ready to go! The exchange went smoothly, but Leah looked pretty fired up when she found Travis and I. Apparently, her leg of the race went past the Anheuser-Busch plant and the beer making odor was not very pleasant to run in. She said it almost made her sick! Despite that, she totally rocked those six miles! And that is with not running all week because of her shins. Rockstar!
Tim heading to the first relay station (near Busch Stadium) and
waiting for Leah to hand off to him.
We all knew Tim was going to be the fastest despite giving him the Holy Hill section of the course, which was also the longest, clocking in at about 7.5 miles. Because of this, we knew we had to get Travis to the next hand off point as soon as possible. We headed to the Metro and was shocked by the number of people there. It was so crowded, people were waiting on the steps! We pushed through the crowds to get as close as we could. We anticipated the train to fill up quickly when it came, and we were right. We were squished in there like sardines! It was so bad, the doors couldn't shut, so we had to squeeze in just a little bit more. Ugh. Many stops later, we had finally made it to Forest Park, where Travis needed to get off along with most everyone else. Leah and I were able to actually sit down for a bit before the Delmar station.
Travis and Leah throughout the day.
Once we were at my relay station, I started to get nervous. Most of my nerves had to do with the fact that I had been up since 4:45am and standing around. I feared I would have dead legs before I even had to start running. Tim called around 9:16am to let me know that he was done and Travis had started. Travis' leg of the race was 7 miles. I mapped out a plan in my head as to when I should eat my snack and then head towards the lovely port-a-potties (another thing about racing that I don't like!). My timing actually worked out pretty decent. Leah and I only had to search for Travis for about 15-20 minutes before we saw him coming towards the station. He passed the race belt off to me and I was off.
I had a few issues to start. I had my ear buds in, which I don't run in often. When I put the race belt on, it pulled the ear buds out and jerked my mp3 player. I decided to just stop and get that taken care of instead of attempting to do it as I ran. My first 3 miles were pretty decent. My legs did feel a bit dead, but I was able to keep a decent pace. After about 3.5 miles, everything just got harder. The sun was really, really hot. It was a gorgeous day, sunny and 70, but man, it was beating down on those concrete roads and I was just burning UP! Everyone would move to the right side of the road just to stay in the small line of shade that was there. The other issue that hit around that time were hills. They weren't steep, they just felt long. I had heard the last few miles of the course did feel like it was uphill because of this, but man I just didn't expect it to be that annoying.
After getting a cramp in my calf, I decided to walk up one of the hills. It was at this point I started to get whiny. The whinefest didn't last long though. Here I was, running the last 6 miles on a marathon course. I was surrounded by folks that had been running for almost 4 hours! Um, how could I even begin to whine when I was watching folks hobble along to finish 26.2 miles? I told myself to suck it up, buttercup and just keep on moving!
The last mile was brutal. I could see the darn finish line for pretty much the last half mile or so. I knew I would see my team soon and just wanted to get to them as fast I as could. Right after I saw the 26 mile marker, there they were. My wonderful teammates! Me being my goofy self, shouted out to them, "Get your a**es over here and finish this with me!" Yeah, I'm classy.
Me shouting at my teammates.
We did it. We were done! We finished the Relay in 4:17:06 and were 87 out of 227 runners in our category. Not too shabby! 
3 Speed Demons & Me
You know I love my bling!
I really enjoyed doing this relay and hope that we can do it again next year. Everyone ran better than they expected. Well, except for me, I ran pretty much WHAT I expected! :) We also just had a lot of fun hanging out. Good times with good people.I also have to mention that this has only made me even more nervous about running a marathon in October. Watching the marathoners around me during my leg made me think about how hard and challenging it really is going to be for me. I'm determined to do it though. I just hope that will be enough to get me through it.
Until next time...
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