Marathoning mom-to-be shows serious grit

Last week before the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon, we shared the story of Leslie Quinalty.

The Norman woman is seven months pregnant, but she was going to run the marathon.

It was quite a story.

Still, it paled in comparison to the tale that Quinalty had to tell after the marathon, a race run in rainy, raw conditions on Sunday. She emailed me Tuesday, presumably after she had finally thawed out:

“I finished, but it took a lot of determination. I did the early start, so somewhere around Mile 4 or 5 it started pouring down rain and lightning overhead. I would later find out that the regular start was delayed because of this downpour. I had prepared for “light drizzle”, so I was wearing only shorts, a pair of XL cotton sweatpants that I had planned to ditch a few miles in and a short-sleeved tech shirt.

“I had told myself that I was going to walk until the halfway mark, then do run-walk intervals the rest of the way so I wouldn’t have to deal with some of the pain issues I’ve encountered in the last month for the entire race. Well, the lightning was pretty scary so I started doing some run-walk intervals early on.

“Luckily, I met up with a friend who had  an extra trash bag for me to wear. By Mile 10, my arms were so cold they were numb, my shoes were soaked, and one of the cushions in my shoes that alleviates some foot pain I get was completely squished, thus rendering it useless. I held on to the soaked and heavy sweatpants as they were blocking some of the wind.

“I was so cold by Mile 18 that I was starting to feel strange and suspected I might be getting too cold, so I started stopping at every port-a-potty and jumping up and down inside until I quit shivering.

“At one of the stops, it started pouring down really hard and hailing, so I think I stayed inside the port-a-potty for about 10 minutes. You know you’re in bad shape when a port-a-potty is your preferred environment at the time.