He has made everything beautiful in its time: something I've never done before: run a marathon

So, the day has come and went. On February 14, 2010, I ran a marathon. Quite an exciting Valentine's Day for sure. It was great. It was also very hard/painful. I have been training for four long months to get to this point, and the day finally arrived. I can hardly believe it really happened (other than the fact that my knee is killing me, every muscle in my lower body hurts, and I no longer have to wake up at 4:30 in the morning). Here's how it all went down:

First, me and 5 of my friend drove to Austin on Saturday morning. We left later than planned, but we still got there at a good time for lunch. Maestro (my GPS - yes it has a name...) took us quite a weird way to get to Chuy's, the Tex-Mex place we decided to get lunch, and once we got there we still couldn't find it. Luckily Joann had some friends that went to UT so they helped us out and turns out it was in the back of the shopping center. After some delicious Carne Guisada, we headed back to downtown to get to the expo so us runners could check in and pick up our registration packets. Every runner got a new backpack and we capitalized on all the discounts that were being offered. I got some new running shoes that I would be needing after the run the next day (at a very discounted price!) and got to learn about sheddable clothing (not worth it...a waste of $15). After that we headed to meet our drivers at the nearby Whataburger and then headed off to do some shopping. Joann's friends knew where to take us (and I'm sure those guys were super excited about checking out the boutiques...) and we got some cute accessories (all we could afford at those places).

Around 6 we headed to my grandparent's house, where we would be spending the night, for dinner. My parents drove in to help host/cook dinner/watch me run. We had a ton of food and carbo-loaded as much as we could with lasagna, spaghetti, and garlic bread :) After dinner we hung out for a while with my family (and opened some late Christmas gifts - Christmas all over again in February is great!) and then attempted to get to bed early so that we could wake up super early for the last time for the marathon. We finally all made it into bed around 10 PM and that night was filled with tossing and turning and waking up every 30 minutes to go to the bathroom thanks to all that water I drank the day before.

Then 4:15 came too soon. I slept hardly any and pulling myself out of bed was extremely difficult, so I hit my snooze button once, but really couldn't fall asleep. I reminded myself that I would be able to sleep in the next day and tore myself out of bed and headed downstairs for breakfast. My parents and grandparents were so great to wake up even earlier than I did to finish making breakfast (most of it was made the day before - smart people). Jessica ended up getting sick the night before, so she stayed in bed and ended up not running her half-marathon. After eating as much as we could for that early in the morning, we all headed back upstairs to put on our running gear and jackets to keep warm and at 5:00 headed off to downtown. It was so excited finally being there, and seeing other people and knowing that soon we would all be running together. My parents dropped us off as close to the start at they could get and then went to go park with Erin and Sarah in another car doing the same. Then us runners headed to the start line to check everything out, make a last minute bathroom stop (still an hour and a half before the race) and check in our sweatshirts and stuff so we wouldn't have to run with them. As we were wandering around we saw a Starbucks and after getting everything done we ran in there to try and stay warm (since we no longer had our jackets) and wait for everyone to come and join us there. 7 o'clock was quickly approaching so after everyone came and met up with us as well as some last minute photos we headed outside to get warmed up and another bathroom stop.

Fireworks (or maybe giant sparkler-like things) signified the start of the race and we were off. Well, we were sort-of off. It took us a couple minutes to get up to the start line due to the crowd (14,000 people ran the race). It was pretty indescribable. I really needed a camera to capture everything that was going on. Even at 7 AM on a Sunday people were out cheering us on, bands had set up along the side of the race to play us on towards the finish, and it was mass chaos at the beginning with so many people. It wasn't until the marathoners and half-marathoners split that I felt I actually had room to run without trying to make my way around people and avoid bumping into everyone. People were dressed up like Cupid, Leprechauns, Braveheart and I'm sure there were others. Couples were wearing cute, matching, homemade shirts in honor of Valentine's Day and the list just goes on. We started off in downtown and made a loop back around and then through some neighborhoods where families were outside sitting in lawn chairs to cheer us on and to hand out water and oreos :) as well as free beer and mimosas (don't worry George I didn't drink any) and all kinds of things. Joann, Alisha and I ran together until about mile 8 and then it was time for them to speed up a little while I continued at my same pace since I was no where near being close to finished. About half way my knee started really bothering me. It was definitely a bummer since I hadn't really been having a lot of problems with it, but I decided that anything short of dying I would finish the race.

Miles 15-20 were the hardest. My knee was hurting, the hills sucked and I still had a long way to go. There were points (especially when going up hills) where I was pretty sure I could walk faster than I was attempting to run. Luckily I had lots of people around running with me as well as Michael Jackson, the Ting Tings (along with others) to carry me through. When I reached Mile 21, I finally got excited again. For a while I was asking myself why I decided to do this. But with only 5 miles left, I kept telling myself that after 20 miles, 5 was really nothing. Those last 5 still seemed long. We were still running through neighborhoods and it seemed endless, but then I saw the UT clock tower. My final destination was on the other side of it, so again I was motivated to keep going.

Finally, after a long somewhere between 4 and 5 hours, I hit Congress street. It was a downhill treck to and around the congress building as fast as I could after already running 25 miles to the finish line, and then I was done. It was totally surreal. Like I said before I can hardly believe I did it. After 4 months of training it was over before lunch. I was completely exhausted, starving, thirsty, in pain, and even a little sunburned because the sun finally decided to come out for the first time in 2010. Despite all of these things I would do it again in a second. Well, maybe not that soon. I'm still suffering from the after effects of running for such a long distance (I'm pretty sure I have tendinitis...awesome...or something similar in my knee), but I would do it again. Now after completely my first marathon I feel better prepared for the next one, whenever that may be. I know what to do better, and also know I definitely need a partner to run with me the whole way for miles 15-20 when I have almost run out of hope and for the four months worth of training beforehand.

So all in all it was a lot of fun and I'm really glad I did it and I highly recommend it. Enjoy the pictures :)