Marathon!

So this post is very delayed! But this was such a huge accomplishment for me I can't not write about it. 

A little over a year ago I started running a few races with one of my friends, Nathalie.  First we did a 10k, then a 10 miler.  Then we started discussing maybe a half... then she suggested running the Marine Corp Marathon.  Whattttt?!!!! I actually thought she was insane.  But then I started thinking about and thought "What the hell.  I'm young and now is a better time than any!" Registration for the marathon was on March 27, my 21st birthday! After an hour and 10 minutes of the website crashing and re-entering my information multiple times I finally got in! I started my training at home over the summer with my mom.  September 1st Nathalie, my mom, my aunt and I (as well as some of my other teammates!) Ran the VA Beach Rock N Roll Half marathon.  After that Nathalie and I did our long runs together on the weekends leading up to the race. 

 

 At the race expo the day before

 Race day was October 27th 2013.  My parents had come into town the day before and were staying in Cystal city not far from the start of the race.  The morning of the race Nat and I met up and went over together.  Her parents had bought us these really adorable ;) sweatsuits to wear to the start since it was a little chilly!

 My mom and her friend made this amazing shirt for me since Ian was deployed and couldn't be there.

 Part way during the race one of the times we saw my parents

 We even saw Caitlin!

The race was awesome.  We kept a comfortable pace and had so many awesome people cheering for us the whole time! We saw my parents about 6 times throughout the race.. I'm pretty sure they walked/ran/metro-ed about 22 miles that day.  They're great! We also had a group of teammates come to cheer us on which was super awesome too. 

 Finishers!!!!

I can't say I plan on running a full marathon anytime really soon but you never know! Maybe Nathalie will convince me again one day ;)