Kapoesy: 26.2 miles later...

Done.

And goodness gracious was it difficult.

I don't mean to make such a big deal out of this. I know lots of people run marathons and even if you haven't its easy to imagine how hard they would be. That's what you'd think right?

But you're wrong. Whatever you're imagining, its 1,000 times harder. Especially when you run your last seven miles in 96 degree weather.

Here's a quick recap and a few pictures. There are more and better pictures to come later. My dad got some good ones, as did Erin I think.

So going to bed last night at 8 was a bust. I ended up laying in bed until around 10:30, then just getting up and watching about 40 minutes of a movie to try and get tired. The reason I hit the sack so early was so we could make it to the 4 a.m. early bird bus where they give out prizes for people willing to take the earlier shuttles.

If there is one thing you should know about me it's that a lifelong dream of mine is to win a free ipod. I mean...everyone wins free ipods. Every time I even bring up this ambition of mine someone says "oh, I won my Ipod at blahblahblah" which is nothing but infuriating for us non-ipod winners. Last year I even went as far as to set up a separate e-mail account just for entering sweepstakes and entered four online ipod drawings a day for about two weeks before I forgot about it because Lost started back up again.

So, as luck would have it, the main giveaways they were doing on the early-bird bus was for...ipods! We got up. We got to the buses on time. We were feeling good. And then, I looked down...and realized I had forgotten my race number. And I had no cell phone. And no gas in my car. Or a wallet. Of course.

I ended up borrowing someone's cell phone and calling my mom like a whiney little girl. I also had to wait around for her to bring it meaning I missed the early bird bus and the prize of my dreams. The best part was the first thing she said when I called and told her my predicament:

"Goshdangit Rachel...you are always doing stuff like this!"

"uh mom...this is Katie."

She then sighed the sigh of a mother who has not ONE completely ridiculous and irresponsible daughter, but TWO. Sorry mom. Life is hard.

I want to save the details of the race for when I have some better pictures. Also I have been slowly dying on my couch all day and will probably drop dead if I try and think any harder about writing anything. Just know that I finished. And it was really hard. And I didn't win a free Ipod.

Foiled again by my own absurdity.

On the bright side, the experience was beautiful.

In its own I-wish-I-were-dead kind of way.

I am a marathon finisher.

Katie