Whew - it's been a whirlwind week since the Rock n Roll marathon weekend in San Diego.
After a busy weekend at the marathon expo we had the pleasure of running with our "Skirthusiast" Jen as she finished her first marathon. We waited for Jen at the 18 mile mark
As you can see in the photo to the left - she was looking great at this point. All smiles & energy! Her original race plan was to run a 3:40 or better and she started with the 3:30 pace group. At mile 18 she was right on target with the 3:30 group and looking strong. We joined Jen at mile 18 where the course winds through Crown Point.

Here she is still running strong at mile 20. It was funny, right before mile 22 as she continued to pick up the pace and run negative splits, Jen sheepishly asked "so, when am I gonna hit this wall?". We assured her that she had done all the hard work and all her training miles and as long as she continued to stay hydrated and fueled up (hello espresso love gu!), she would be just fine. We had to chuckle at her enthusiasm - she had WAY to much energy these last few miles. She would spot friends from her training program or fellow San Diego Track Club members and she would sprint up to them, cheering them along and trying to carry on a conversation as if it was a casual short training run. Some of them looked at her like "who is this psycho chick that wants to chit chat right now?....doesn't she know we've been running for 20+ miles?". We reminded Jen to hold back a bit & save all that extra energy for the last few miles and found ourselves laughing again as she exclaimed "only 4 miles left - wow - that's it???".

By mile 23, the last few miles were flying by as our splits were getting faster and faster (To be honest, Christy and I were expecting to scoop up the pieces of Jen at mile 18 and run her in at a nice mellow pace - we had no idea we'd be getting in a tempo run on Sunday!) I think our last splits were sub 7 minutes.

All in all - Jen ran the perfect marathon race. She started out at an easy pace and ran the first with the pace group and then slowly picked it up on the back half.













An excellent first marathon and Boston Qualifier - 3:25:32 - here's a photo of the three of us after the finish. Congrats and well done "Jen Skirt"!