Rosa, Leah & I ran the pf changs marathon in January. All those months of a strict diet and training so many hours came all down to this day. Rosa flew in on friday, we went to the expo on saturday to pick up our race gear and we parked close to the expo we thought, but we couldn't find it surprise surprise, so we are walking around trying to figure out how to get to the right building. We came to this dead end, then some gate's opened up and some worker walked through the gate's and Rosa said lets go through there so we started running to get through the gates before they closed. so we started walking around and realized we were in the loading dock area that was all gated off and the only way to get out was if you had a key. So while we were trying to figure out how to get out of this place (we were thinking of jumping over the brick wall) some employee showed up and let us through, thank goodness otherwise I could see myself trying to jump over the wall and falling on my face. After the expo we went to go load up on carbs at Olive Garden, my favorite! Went and hung out with the family and slept at my mom's house because my little Jeremiah wake's up still so I needed to get my sleep for the race. Even though it was hard to fall asleep and stay asleep, my mind was racing about what it would be like to run the marathon. I was so nervous for a lot of things: I hope we get there with plenty of time, I hope I ate the right foods, I hope I can do this, can i do this?, I hope I don't hurt myself, I hope my legs don't give out on me,I need to get good sleep but why can't I fall asleep, and I was so nervous of "hitting the brick wall". I even had dreams about the race. I woke up before my alarm went off, got all my gear on, went over and over to make sure I wasn't going to forget anything. Brushed my teeth, went to the bathroom said my prayers, ate some toast and we were out the door. My sister-in-law Leah, her dad was nice enough to drive us to the race. We had our maps of where the drop off was and we got a little lost, whether the map was wrong or we were it was still nerve wrecking cuz all of us girls were kinda flipping out at Joe(he says) we finally found the drop off, and Leah whose time was starting before Rosa and I took off running. Me and Rosa just tried to remain calm, we both needed to go to the bathroom so we found the outhouses with a huge line, thank goodness people let us in front of them because we were running the marathon not the half(the marathon started first) So while we are waiting in line we see Leah running past us from the other outhouses and the look on her face was panic, Me and Rosa started busting up laughing! It was so funny! So we made our way to the start line and there was music and people talking, I recognized some guy up on the stage talking and then realized it was John McCain wishing all the runners good luck, so much excitement! Rosa and I ran the first 9 miles together but she is a faster runner than I am so I didn't want to overwork myself because I know I would pay for it later so I told her to just go. It was such a fun race because there was a band at every mile and cheeleaders too. I felt really good up until mile 20, my legs started to cramp up really bad so I had to stop and rub them out. Stopping made them hurt worse but yet they were killing me when I was running and I was really tired. I started to doubt myself and was thinking why am I doing this, it is sooo hard, I just want to give up but I didn't I just prayed and thought about what Rosa told me when we were running in the beginning of the race "We are kings of our souls" and I also thought about what I put on my vision board for this years resolutions, my motto for the year"Be Victorious" So after thinking like this it didn't get any easier but I started feeling happier and goofy, I started singing and probally staggering back and forth but I made it to the finish line(4:48) and it was the most amazing feeling ever! Just a feeling of accomplishment, doing something that I thought I could never do was so empowering. I felt like I can conquer anything that come's my way. It was so nice to have family there at the finish line waiting for me. I definetly would recommend everyone running a marathon it's the most amazing feeling ever and you get to experience all these emotions in such a little amount of time. It also was so cool to think that 1year ago I was doing another kind of marathon, giving birth to my sweet Jeremiah 1-18-2009
