2:00:43

My heart was pounding, mind racing, and stomach churning, I was engulfed in a mixture of emotions; excitement/nervousness/anxiousness/with some slight thoughts of misery. I went to bed early, but woke up WAY too early too. There's nothing more annoying than waking up hours before you need to and not being able to fall back to sleep! My mind kept questioning whether or not I'd actually be able to run the entire 13.1 miles. As if my nightmares weren't enough to disprove my abilities, for an entire hour and a half before my alarm was supposed to go off, I laid in bed worrying myself sick.

By the time 6:30 rolled around, Andrea and I were already in the city, sitting in her car, waiting for the start of the race (yes, she's a trooper and woke up early on a Saturday morning to come cheer on her little sister). By 7 a.m. I think the sun was just coming up and the weather was a crisp 36 degrees. I was frozen for the first mile of my run and thawed out somewhere between mile 4 and 5. I thought mile 11 was never going to end, but my tired legs kept going, and eventually carried me across the finish line at 2:05:23...with adjusted time that meant I finished in two hours flat!

This picture doesn't do justice to the massive 8000 participants who ran in the National Marathon

I have a smile here (I'm on the left hand side in the black shorts), but does that smile last for 13 miles?

Yes, yes it does!
Two hours later! In my head I was sprinting my heart out to the finish line, somehow the video doesn't quite capture that.


Turning my chip in so I can get my actual time
There is nothing more attractive than a sweaty picture.

The end! Happy running day to us all!!!