My marathon day.

3:45 am - Get your butt up, it’s time to get ready.
4:30 am - Meet downstairs in the lobby with the team and get on the shuttle buses to the start line.
5:00 am – 6:20 am - Some where in between here I get in line for gear check and go visit a port-a-potty. My goal is to take a BM before the race so I don’t have to take one during the race. I go to the port-a-potty. I almost throw up from the smell. I exit as quickly as possible without taking a BM. GROSS.. Marathoners take the worst BM’s!
6:25 am - Get in my corral and get ready for the gun.
6:30 am - I am still in my corral, but hey at least the fast runners got to go first. LOL
6:43 am - OK finally I crossed the official start line. So what if there are 20,000 people in front of me, I’ll catch up. Yeah don’t laugh I can only dream to catch up with the Kenyan’s all the way in the front. OMG I saw the most wonderful shirt at the expo, it said… “In my dreams I am a Kenyan.” Yeah baby, that is me. In my dreams I am a Kenyan.
After 6:43 am I lost all track of time and start looking at the mile markers.
Mile 1 – first potty spot. My teammates, Audrey and Susana, have to go potty and it’s time for me to rub some instant pain relief on my chins. I was like what the heck! For once can’t the pain just go away!
Mile 5 – Susana took off. Yeah she left us.
Mile 9 – Audrey and I meet up with a teammate, whose name will not be divulged. I’ll tell you why later. Anyway, we meet up so teammate, she asked Audrey and I how we were doing. We are feeling great and tell her we are running a 3/3. For all you non-marathoners a 3/3 is a 3 minute walk with a 3 minute run. We chat for maybe a minute with said teammate and then she says, “Ok well I am going to leave you in the dust now; I am off to find Peter.” Peter is the walk coach and was somewhere ahead of us. Audrey and I just looked at each other and said OK, see you later.
Mile 12 – Hello? Hey Bucket its April. WOO HOO APRIL! Thank you so much for calling me! You don’t know how much it means to me that you called me. WOO HOO BUCKET… where is that coming from? Ohhhhh lllooookkk there are my teammates cheering us on. I cry. I am so happy to see them.
Mile 13.1 – WOO HOO Half Marathoners. We see a few of our teammates at the finish line and yell out and say WOO HOO GO TEAM. Secretly I did wish I had stopped at the half marathon finish. As I waved good-bye I told myself OK there is no turning back now, I need to complete this marathon.
Mile 17 – Picture Time. Audrey and I look at each other, fix ourselves and smile pretty for the pictures. I had the biggest smile on my face. The photographers were like.. WOW that is a great shot, keep up the good work. Yeah baby!
Mile 18 – Guess who we see? It’s our “Eat my dust Teammate”. Audrey and I looked at each other and laughed. So we caught up huh. Yeah so maybe starting off really fast didn’t help you much did it? Slow and steady was our motto, so guess what “EAT MY DUST!” No I didn’t really say that to her, but yeah I thought it. LOL.
Mile 19 – this is the cut off point, if you don’t pass this point by 12:30 pm the van picks you up and takes you to the finish line. Audrey and I passed it at 12:10 pm! We were like.. yeah yeah we did it. I was flying high.
Mile 21 – Picture time again. So I had just gotten off the phone with April and she said she was concerned because my time was not being updated. So I made sure to listen for this checkpoints buzzer. So imagine this, I see the photographers, smile for them and then figure ok that’s it. As I am passing the checkpoint I jump on the electrical wires to make sure the buzzer goes off, I am laughing as I do this, I look up and wwoooowww where did you come off there is a photographer right there. He laughed and said that was a great shot, I can’t wait to see that picture!
Mile 22 – WOO HOO Team in Training. There are my friends again. OOOHH can’t even tell you the feeling!
Mile 23 – Hello. Hey Bucket… It’s Laura Fiore calling me. Hey Laura. Bucket where you at? I’m at mile 23. Ok call me when you get closer to 24 I want to run you in. YEAH HOO! I had been looking for Laura all day so I was so excited she called me.
Mile 25 – Oh it’s my Tyler waiting for me. Ok its Coach Tyler, but all the girls on the team are like Oh Tyler, Oh Tyler- you get the picture so I had to give in. Oh look there is Laura. OH LAURA! You don’t know how much it means to me to have you as a friend. We are running and then she yells at her team, THIS IS BUCKET!! Her team starts cheering me on. Oh they are the greatest.
Mile 26 – Ok the finish line is right over the bend. Ay ya ya.. my feet don’t want to run anymore and I’m starting to slow down. Why now? I wanted to finish fast and now I am going to crawl across? NO WAY Audrey wouldn’t let me. So here we go. Audrey grabs my hand and leads me across the finish line. Want to see it? Click here and watch the clock at the top of the screen. http://video.nbcsandiego.com/player/?id=257855 When the clock hits close to 7:36:53 watch the right hand of the screen. See those two crossing the finish line holding hands? Yep that is Audrey and I. I sure do love technology!
Mile 26.2 – My mom and my sister are out there to greet me. I can not put in words the emotions that overcame me. I hugged my mom and cried like a baby. My mom cried too. I don’t know if she cried because I was crying, or was she crying because I was so smelly? LOL.. I love my mom.

So do you want to know what it feels like to do a marathon? AMAZING! The feeling is indescribable! For me it wasn’t just a marathon, I got to run with Audrey Duffy. Who is Audrey Duffy? Audrey is a 6 ½ year cancer survivor. Her goal, for 2008, is to have completed 20 Leukemia and Lymphoma Society endurance training events. This event was her 18th event! She plans on doing a Triathlon in September and then the San Francisco Nike Marathon in October. I asked her, how she does it? How does she fundraise for all of these events? She told me she isn’t afraid to ask. She will send out emails and ask for money, and when someone tells her, I’d love to donate but right now I just can’t. She turns around and says “I’d love not to have cancer, but I don’t have a choice!” So true don’t you think? Audrey is amazing; I do hope to be able to do more marathon events with her. I had a blast getting to know her, and hey the best thing is she never slowed down – because honestly I am slow and I thought I was slowing her down.

After the marathon I went back to my room, took a nice cold shower and went and had some dinner. Around 7:30 pm one of my roomies, Bridget, was like…Lets go.. lets go see Pat Benatar. We weren’t going to go because our other roomy, Kelly, was a bit out of it. She had blisters on her feet that looked like huge grapes. I wish I had taken pictures but I didn’t have a chance, and honestly I couldn’t move fast enough to get my camera. So quickly we get ready, and head on out to the concert. I call Laura..and in few minutes WOO HOO we are singing to Heartbreaker…!! I was singing and dancing. You would have never known that I had just completed a marathon. I can’t wait to do it again.

There you have it. I love it and can’t get enough of it!






Oh that there is Bridget -> hahahahah can you only imagine all the laughs we had in our room!