Race Report :) I like saying that.

Where do I begin? It was such a great experience and I truly can't wait to do it again!
 
Official Results:

L-Me, R- Selene....our shirts say "she runs a mother mile (play on words...another mile, get it?) with arrows pointing at eachother :)

So at 8 am, Selene picked me up. I made us these little shirts that matched. It was kind of cheesy, but I we'd done almost all of our long runs together and we planned to run together during the race. I felt like we were a little mini mom team, and teams need shirts, right? So, I figured out how to DIY screen printed shirts and gave it a go. (Gotta love Target clearance...I got our "victory green" shirts for $2.48 each!)
We headed to the race, where we met up with Heidi, in the loooong porto line. They did this girly warm up with an aerobics type thing...but we were rebellious, and figured that we'd save our calories and energy for the run. We stretched a bit and then lined up with the other 2300 women. The mayor of Vancouver welcomed us and made some strange comment about getting his friend to rub down ladies legs to warm them up. It sounded weird coming from the Mayor. It WAS cold. I heard it was 37 when the race started, but it was crisp and beautiful.

not sure why we look more like power walkers here, but we were happy :)

We were off and running through downtown Vancouver, through the farmers market, trying to find our pace and get away from the jam packed crowd. Finally, we started to warm up once we got into the sun. About Mile 1 we saw our first cheerleaders, Alli and Rosemary...and about mile 2 or so, we saw my family :) I was impressed they got out of the house and to the point they'd see us that early in the race!  We saw several awesome cheerleaders throughout this area, my friend Jill, (who's getting ready for her first half  this weekend!), Curtis and Meleea (Meleea is a new runner too!), Wendy (just ran her second Marathon!), Mere's family...down a bit further, near Marine Park we saw Heidi's hubby and kids, who were rockin' signs and cheering for all the runners. It was awesome!

Nicci and Tamara (taken by my hubby)

Between Marine Park and Wintler Park, was the most beautiful stretch (well, that I noticed!) The fall colors were SO fantastic! At this point, we started seeing the leaders for the race coming back from the out and back, too, so we started looking for friends. Right as Selene said to me, I wonder if we'll see Nicci....Nicci and Tamara blew by yelling in our face, "Girls!"

Mere

If she hadn't waved we would have missed her. Then we saw Meredith, all smiles! 

Amy

I was SO happy to see her! We saw Amy, rocking it, and made the turnaround.
On our way back, we were looking for sweet Heidi. We knew that she was worried about her knee holding up, so we were hoping hoping hoping that it would and that she was having as much fun as we were. We saw her...all smiles! Yay!

We saw Heidi's family again...and were impressed...one dad, 3 kids, two locations! Shortly after, we saw Selene's family. That was so fun! Channing, Selene's little 4 year old was fist pumping, saying "Go, Mama,Go!" so sweet and gave us a nice little boost.

We ran back through seeing all the cheerleaders again, which was AWESOME! So nice to see so many friendly uplifting faces! Around Mile 8-9, we saw my mom, and my hubby again with my kiddos, which was fantastic! They were ringing little bells and cheering loud! Again, impressed with my man, getting around! Shortly after, we saw Alli and Rosemary again, with Nicci's brother Brandon added, who were doing the wave for us! It made us giggle and we appreciated the spirit! We saw some other families, and AGAIN Heidi's little family. Colin, Heidi's hubby got the MVP cheerleader award, we saw them 4 times!!
This was another out and back, sort of, and so we saw many of our friends, again! It was so fun to see our girls killing it at the front of the pack! (Nicci, Tamara, and Mere---going for sub-2). After we rounded the Fred Meyer complex I think Mile 9-10, we got a fun little surprise, my friend Lisa was there on the sidelines, cheering for us! I was SO HAPPY to see her, i had to give her a drive by hug. She's been on a long vacation, and I hadn't seen her for a few weeks, SUCH a treat! We looped around, and ran through the Fort Vancouver park, which was really beautiful. Alot of this mile was uphill, but not as bad as we'd been told, we didnt' think. We were expecting this horrendous hill...but it was doable. We knew that at the top of it, we had just one more mile. During that stretch we saw Alli and Rosemary again, and they told us how easy we made it look...we truly were still enjoying ourselves, and I think we may have even been chatting at this point about running a full marathon :). Looking at my watch, I knew we were right at the time Mere should be crossing if she made sub-2 (which I KNEW she would). Getting up that hill, was work, but we knew we were getting close to finishing. Once we hit Officer's Row, we picked up our pace. Our game plan was to keep it at our consistent 10:30 pace (which was nearly impossible...so hard to hold back!) We bounced around 10-10:15 much of the race. Our uphill pace was around 10:40. Once we hit Officer's Row, we knew we could let all go and run our fannies off. So, we did. 9:50, 9:40, 9:30...our pace kept getting quicker. Selene was telling me," you got this, you got this!" and I was saying back, "WE got this!" It felt good to just haul a** and hold nothing back. The last time I looked at my Garmin, about 12.75 miles, we were hittting 8:40 pace.  My Garmin said my best pace was 7:50. Once we saw the 13th mile marker, just around the corner from the finish, the line of runner's was single file in a tight area. Selene was ahead of me and I was just off her shoulder. We passed several runners, which felt so great (sorry, runners! iknow it's not fun to be the one being passed!). Selene was on FIRE.

Selene, hauling it in to the finish!

Once she saw that last corner, it was like her shoes were on fire...she pulled ahead of me and blasted toward the finish. I was chasing her and going at 110%...I knew I was giving it all I had left to give. My legs were going at max speed...I literally couldn't make them go any faster.

Me, flying towards the finish--I like that neither of my feet are touching the ground in this pic

PUSHING it to the finish.

I felt like Selene got a block ahead of me, but in reality, she crossed the finish line 10 seconds ahead of me, and only one runner was in between us. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my mom cheering, and Meleea again, and I was glad I'd looked up from the ground. I pushed one foot in front of the other, and felt SO relieved to see those blue mats in front of me! Selene turned around as soon as she crossed, and I came in just behind her....we hugged and cried. We held on tight, and I thanked her for inviting me on this crazy journey.

Finish time 2:14:50--average 10:18 pace

oops, some of these gals are probably annoyed that we were right on the mats, but we were having a moment!

When we let go, Meredith was right there on the sidelines...calling me over for the hug I'd been waiting for! We hugged sweaty and tight, and I asked, "did you do it??" And she said yes...1:56. We told each other how proud we were of each other...it was one of my favorite moments of the day. I found my family, and hugged them, and we went back to watch for Heidi.

The fam at the finish

Heidi, coming across the finish line!

That was another one of my favorite moments...seeing her cross the finish. She was in a great spot...no body in front of her, so I had a great view of her coming in! I snapped a photo of her crossing the line, and waited to hug her....She finished with a huge smile and a fantastic time!! She'd run the whole thing, and her knees were doing great! I was teary as I hugged her, telling her how proud I was of her HUGE accomplishment!

It was a fantastic day. We grabbed our bagels and soup...said goodbye to our families and we sat on the curb eating. I cried some more, telling Selene how much us sharing this had meant to me. I told her how much this experience, not just the race, but the training for the race, had TRULY changed me. Changed my life. We hugged again. We ate...we went and got our free massages and chocolate. It was such a fun race to be a part of!

Me, Heidi, and Selene at the massage headquarters- GREAT perk of Girlfriends!

I think I'll have some more thoughts, about the future, about the race experience, and how it changed me...but this post has taken FOREVER to type up, so I'm off to bed :)