ANNA RUSSI

Motorola Austin Marathon 2000

Finishing my first marathon was a wonderful experience and I'm looking forward to completing another one. I was so excited the night before the race and I got less than 4 hours of sleep! I couldn't believe that after all the talking and planning that I was actually about to run a marathon. I was looking forward to the challenge. I was a little worried in the morning (after not getting much sleep) that I wouldn't do very well, but I did much better than I anticipated. Being my first marathon, my goal was simply to finish it and without walking. I also thought it would be really cool to do it in less than four hours, but I didn't make this a primary goal. I was so excited during the race which helped me run well and the miles seemed to go by quickly. I was running at 8:35 pace at the beginning and thought it might be too fast so I tried to slow down, but I couldn't and my average pace turned out to be 8:30. It was great running into people I knew from both the team and Austin Fit. The people, both in and out of the race, made it fun. I started getting tired at about mile 21, but I was still psyched and had people cheering for me there. I didn't really notice any pain till mile 22. At mile 24 my feet started burning, but I had some energy left so I picked up the pace and finished strong. I was so excited with my time of 3:42:27. As soon as I stopped running my legs tightened and I was getting sore but it was a good kind of soreness! I was walking like a penguin and my brother and boyfriend took turns giving me a piggy-back ride to the car!

I'm so glad Tim started this team, creating an opportunity for me to run my first marathon. Even though I had been wanting to do a marathon, I wouldn't have attempted it this year if it wasn't for the team. I want to thank Tim and the team for helping me reach my goal. It was great to have such a nice group of people to share this experience with.