Akron, Ohio Marathon 9/25/10

Dave started this... but I'm so glad that he did. For my 31st birthday he gave me this cool running watch that is run by local satellites. It tells you your pace, time, distance, and a whole bunch of other stuff. He then gave me a box with the confirmation info about this "marathon" he had signed me up for. I wasn't sure how I felt about it at first but once I got home and started training I was actually kind of excited about it. I only had 12 weeks to train so I had to get going (Dave and I ran a half marathon in May, so I was already half trained and not too far behind). He said that he knew I wanted to run one but knew that I would never get the guts to sign up myself so he did it for me. My sister decided to run it too since she was moving out so that was that was nice to have her support when I wanted to quit. We pumped each other up so we would be ready for the big day.

We survived! I'm not going to lie, it was hard but I gave it my all. Our goal was to run 26.2 miles in 4:30 and we both beat it. I finished in 4:12 and Jen in 4:06. Not Boston marathon time but pretty dang good for our first marathon.

Janis, the one next to me is in my ward and her sister Karyn ran it as well. We trained a lot together because it is absolute torture to train on your own. We spent many hours talking, stealing gatorade and water from the marathoners in training, early mornings at Antrim lake and Olentangy River Trail, which is beautiful by the way, and many other things I will never forget. I love you guys so much and I miss you even though I see you at church every sunday.

I'm so blessed to have a healthy body, it is so important to me more than ever. What a great accomplishment for all of us. I'm proud of you guys.