4:56:48

This picture almost didn't happen. First, my right iliotibial band (the muscle from the hip to the knee) acted up and at about kilometer 35, I wasn't sure I could continue. After a water break, I couldn't bend the knee again to start running, so I hobbled along for a while before it warmed up enough for me to painfully squeeze out the last 7 plus kilometers. It was definitely a mind-over-matter moment, something that I could have never done without so much training. Frankly, before I started marathon running, I would have never had the discipline to make it to the end. (It's a bit sore, but feeling much better now, thank you. I failed to stretch properly, and probably also needed to strength train my legs a bit more. Lessons for the next one. Yes, there will be another.)

Second, Stephen almost missed my finish. I told him that I would finish around 9:30 am, but apparently he didn't quite believe me. He was riding along in his taxi along Roxas Boulevard, happened to look out the window to his left, and guess who was almost running beside the car? You guessed it. (Oh, yeah, not all the roads were blocked off from traffic. About 75% were, which was a vast improvement from my last Manila marathon, but the highway overpasses in Makati were rather harrowing.)

Stephen hopped out of the cab and ran like hell to get ahead of me, trying to figure out my new camera as he went. Eventually, he had to bring it to me, so mid-knee-crunching-run, I'm fooling with a camera. Meanwhile, I'm just trying to make it one more half-kilometer. They say a marathon is 26.2 miles, but it's the last .2 that kills you. No doubt.

I've actually never seen Stephen run so fast. Fortunately, the photog genes haven't totally left him and he took some gems. I'm sure he would have prefered his Nikon, but honestly, he was just as in-your-face with my little Panasonic, so I'm sorta glad we limited his equipment ratio.
If it looks like I'm the only one in the race, don't be fooled. I was the only non-Filipina, as far as I could tell, but several hundred at least ran the race. At the five hour mark, though, we tend to be pretty spread out. The people who actually win these races finish in less than half that time. I'm not sure which is worse--running 42K that fast or running 5 hours this slow.
I made my goal, though, which was to break five hours (my Timex time: 4:56:48). Next time, I'm not going to push myself to any goal except finishing. But I had to prove to myself I could do it.
I just needed to sit down. Well, I needed a toilet, but first I needed to sit down. In this case, the top of a plastic trash bin worked just fine.

A bowel movement, shower, and change of clothes later, we had a celebratory lunch at T.G.I. Friday's with our friends, the Richmonds. Thank you to Stephen, the Richmonds, and the Laffertys (who cheered me, and all their P&G runners, on along the course). Yes, this is actually fun, and not just masochistic. I have my eyes on Subic Bay in January. Maybe Bangkok or Kuala Lumpur in the coming year? Freaking addict...