Now what?

For so many months, my life has been completely about the marathon.

It was about the training; do I have enough time to get in the mileage I need, am I training enough for the hills, what about the long runs, or the recovery runs, am I doing enough or too much cross training, how often should I do yoga and stretching, am I going to get in all the training I need.

It was about my nutrition; was I eating enough, was I eating the right foods, was I eating the right combination of foods, was I getting enough calories in, was I burning too much, was I able to maintain the right weight for this marathon.

It was about my fund raising; was I going to raise the minimum about required of $5000 or would they charge me for whatever I was short, was I going to let the Mass Eye and Ear Team down by not meeting their requested amount of $6000, was it possible to actually make my fund raising goal of $7000.

It was about my overall health and injuries; how long would the stomach bug I got last, what about the ear infection and sinus infection, how was my IT band holding up, were my knees ok, what about my upper back from last year, how bad was the Sacroiliac Joint injury I had, what did I need to do for treatment, how long would it take to recover, would it keep me from starting in Hopkinton, would it hold me back from finishing.

This has been my focus for the past 4 months of my life! Now the marathon is done. I'm almost recovered, minus a few minor bruises on my feet that only hurt when I am walking or have shoes on (nice excuse to be lazy on the sofa right now!) :)

I can't believe the whole thing is really done. I did it. I ran in The Boston Marathon as an official runner and I crossed that finish line in Boston! HOLY CRAP! I did it!

I'm proud of me. Honestly though, I'm not proud of the time. It took me WAY too long to finish. Originally I was hoping to break 4 1/2 hours. My official time was 5:43:36. That's not even close to breaking 4 1/2! But I need to give myself a break and remember the injury. I mean, my sacroiliac joint was so bad, my hip was so misaligned, that the length of my legs appeared to be off by an inch! That's crazy! It wasn't until one week before the marathon that they were finally even!

So that really did hold me back in my training. I remember feeling my back go, really just go, when I was on the treadmill on Tuesday, March 1st. From then until the marathon, 7 weeks, the only real running I got in was at 3 different 5K races. That's it. 7 weeks, 9.3 miles of running... NOT even! Two of those races, I couldn't even run, my back was so bad!

So I was just recovering from an injury and didn't really run for 7 weeks... THEN went into Boston. So finishing in 5:43:36 under those circumstances really isn't too bad. I wanted better, but I was afraid I wasn't even going to be able to start! And I was afraid that I would have had to drop out.

Running for a fund raising group too added extra pressure. I felt like I was going to let everyone down if I couldn't do it. I had hyped this up so much and I was so scared I couldn't do it and it would all come crashing down.

I am proud. I overcame the injury. I overcame being under trained. I took the bus, went to Hopkinton and started in the marathon after raising over $7000 and I made my way 26.2 miles to the finish, where I crossed with my arms up over my head in triumph!

I am so happy for the experience and the unbelievable support I received. I am going to have to print my facebook wall with all the comments opened up to save them. The comments people gave were great. The support, encouragement and positive energy I got from everyone was amazing. It was touching and inspiring!

I am really grateful for the experience. I still can't believe I did it!