26.2

In 2010, I decided to return to running.  Although I have always been an athlete, my running history was as a sprinter; I considered a 5K to be a "long distance" even though it is only 3.2 miles.  My new year's resolution in 2010 was to run a half marathon and over the course of ten months, I went from slowly jogging 1.5 miles to running 8-10 miles with relative frequency.  In October 2010, I ran my first half marathon and just a few months later, in February 2011, I ran another one.  Although I knew that I could use another year or two of running to build a solid base, I decided that my new year's resolution for 2011 would be to run a full marathon.  In April, I registered for the Philadelphia Marathon, which is held at the end of November each year - prime time of the year for me, because it's (usually) cold - and told three people of my plan - Lee, my sister Kathleen, and my good friend Sarah, who I run with on Saturday mornings.  Along the way, word leaked out to one or two other people but in general, we remained very tight lipped.  The day we came back from our summer vacation, I started a training program and over the course of 18 weeks, I logged 491.52 training miles.  Along the way, in addition to weekday mileage, I did long Saturday morning runs of 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 and 20 miles - many of those runs were solitary although some weeks, I was lucky enough to have Sarah run all, or at least the first 11 miles, with me.  At the height of my training, there were several weeks during which I ran more than 40 training miles.  I completed my last long run the morning of the October Nor'easter, running a relatively fast 20 miles in a frantic effort to finish before the storm started, and then eased into the taper.  On Sunday, November 20th at 7 a.m, I joined 25,000 other runners at the start line of the Philadelphia Marathon.
When I first started training, my goal was simply to finish, but as the miles piled up, I thought that I might be able to finish in 4 1/2 hours.  When the race started, I knew right away that it had the potential to be a good day because my body felt good; the only potential problem was the weather.  The average temperature at the start of the Philadelphia Marathon is 20 degrees; this year, it was just shy of 60.  I am not a warm weather runner, which is why I picked this particular marathon, so I knew that I was going to have to be extremely careful.  Luckily, the sun was only out part of the time - otherwise, it would have been brutal.  Even so, I had a sunburn on my face when I finished, which is pretty ridiculous for the end of November.  I stopped at 20 different water stops along the course, just to make sure that I stayed hydrated - there were people cramping up all around me and I saw more than one person get taken away by ambulance.
In the end, I finished with a time of 4 hours, 20 minutes and 15 seconds, which was almost ten minutes faster than my goal - I couldn't have been more pleased.  My time put me as 5,703 finisher out of more than 10,000 finishers (top 56%); 1,894 out of 4,155 females (top 45%); and 292 out of 624 females between the ages of 35-39 (top 46%).  There is no way that I could have done this without the love and support of Lee and the girls, who never once complained when I got up at the crack of dawn to go running; or without Sarah, who was such a huge supporter and logged way more miles than she wanted to this fall, many beginning at 5:30 in the morning; or Kathleen, who simply knew that I could do it and never let me think otherwise, even for a moment.

Over last winter, my sister Kathleen and I made a secret pact to run Philly together; then she had to go and qualify for the Boston Marathon, putting a wrench into our plans (just kidding - qualifying for Boson is an amazing feat and I am soooo proud of her!)!  Despite the fact that she had better things to do (like get ready for Boston), Kathleen trained for and ran the Philadelphia marathon this weekend too.  Thank you so much, Kathleen, for being such a great inspiration!  You are the greatest big sister one could ever ask for! 

My bib. 

Post race, with the girls (grimacing because I had to stand still).  I actually saw Lee and the girls at mile 6, which was such a huge boost! 

My medal.  For some reason, the Philadelphia marathon motto is "Best Time of Your Life" - perhaps once I am fully recovered, I won't find that so sadistic.