I’m alive! I successfully completed my first full marathon this weekend at the Rock ‘n Roll Mardis Gras Marathon in New Orleans this past Sunday with my Dad. We had beautiful weather (sunny and in the 50s), and there were over 15,000 runners! I was so nervous the week leading up to my race, but on race day I was surprisingly focused and calm. There were about 15 corrals of runners that were started in waves so that there wasn’t a stampede. My goal time was 20 minutes longer than my Dad’s, so we started in different corrals. The course itself was awesome - we ran through the French Quarters and past one of the levees, so we had quite the scenery! And it was unbelievably flat (thank goodness)! I wore my usual running gear - my bald head and a baseball cap, but it was so sunny out that my poor little head burned where the hole in the back of the cap was! I keep forgetting that my head is more susceptible to burning now that it is bald hehe ;)

I felt like I was flying for the first 13 miles of the race; thank goodness that I had my trusty Garmin on to pace me and help make sure I wasn’t starting out too fast. My official time for the first 13.1 miles of the race was 2:05 (about a 9:00 min/mile pace). And because it was the Rock ‘n Roll Marathon, there was a band playing at every mile! Around mile 15 my vision began to blur, and that’s when I knew that I needed to hydrate. After chugging whatever energy drink they were handing out, I felt a bit better. But around mile 18 my left knee started having shooting pains. Twice I tried walking it off for a minute or two, but it was so painful going from walking to running that I just decided that it would be better to keep running. So I did, and I finished in 4:36! (About 10:30 min/mile.) Considering it was my first full marathon, I was pretty happy.

My Dad finished at 4:20, and my Mom and him greeted me at the finish line. I can’t even begin to explain the pain I was in when I crossed that line; I actually went into a sort of shock and the whole thing is kind of fuzzy to me. I was partially crying, but I remember that my Dad was hugging me and saying “Eat this banana and orange slice! You’ll feel better in 10 minutes, I promise!” It was amazing. My parents and I went out for drinks and lunch afterwards on Bourbon Street to celebrate. And the pain was endurable until the evening - I had a hard time sleeping through it. And on Monday morning I experienced horrific stomach muscle spasms (because your core muscles work really hard when you run), but I’m feeling much better today.

For all of the weekends I spent running 15 miles in freezing temperatures, or the day I ran 18 miles in the gym because we had a snowstorm outside, crossing that finish line made it all worthwhile. This has been an especially difficult past 12 months with the recent loss of all my hair in April, so to achieve one of my life-long goals has been astounding! And I’m so grateful that I had my Dad to help me out - I can’t tell you how many times I called him whining about a long run I had to do or getting advice about training. We are definitely going to run our next marathon together! I absolutely cannot wait to run another one!