A Walk in the Park: December 2009

The training has been intense, the miles have been long, but finally we have something to show for it! Our marathon is complete!! Yay!!! This is a week of celebration, not only for my legs, but for my tummy as well. I’ve made a dozen batches of cookies, laid on the couch and watched movies all week long (well, at least the past two days, and mostly because I couldn’t get off the couch because my legs hurt so bad!). But we did it, we accomplished what we set out to do, we ran 26.2 miles, and we ran it in the time we had set for ourselves.

Thank-you for all your support, prayers, well-wishes, texts, e-mails, and blog comments. There is no way I could have run this race without them!! Of course, Tim ran with flying colors, with little to no problem at all. I’m pretty certain he could have skipped through the whole race, running at my pace. But he was gracious enough to keep my speed and encourage me the whole time! He wants to run it again and attempt to beat his previous time (3:30, or something like that).

Well, the race itself was AWESOME! We hit no walls at all, even though everyone told us at mile 18 you'll feel like crashing and burning. Mile 18 came and went, and I kept thinking, oh my gosh, at any moment it’s going to happen, I’m going to get sick, or hit the wall, or cramp up. But nothing happened, I felt the same, and just kept running.

The last two miles were the most excruciating, but that's because Tim had us sprinting to make our time! Really, the worse part of the whole thing was walking around after the race and feeling like your legs might fall off. We were pretty sore the next day, extremely tired (we had to wake up at 3am the morning of the race), we've got some swollen knees and possibly pulled IT bands, but Tim assures me to give it ice and time and I’ll get over it (love being married to a Physical Therapist!). Besides that, I feel like a million bucks!

A long time ago, I made myself a list of things I wanted to do before I died, and although it sounds silly, this was one of things on the list. I’m so excited I get to cross it off! For most people, this is probably not a huge accomplishment, but for me, a non-runner and a non-workout enthusiast, this is pretty big. Now, I have no idea if I’ll try to run another one and beat my existing time, but I have to say the race itself wasn’t that bad. It was the actual training for the race that was killer.

Oh, forgot to actually tell y'all how we did... Our time was 5hours 7mins, which Tim says was faster than his first marathon. Bragging rights for me, so he says, but seriously, I was just happy I survived!! We crossed the finish line hand-in-hand with our arms waving in the air, it was very ROCKY style. You can check out the pictures here. All in all, it was a really fun experience, and i'm glad i did it!

We had our first visitors last week. Tim's sister, Ruth, and her husband, Stephen, sacrificed their Thanksgiving to come spend a few days in Hawaii with us =). It was wonderful having family here, especially for Thanksgiving, lots of mouths to feed, which always makes me happy. The week flew by, but we were able to incorporate lots of sight seeing, hiking, beach time, and of course plenty of yummy food!

It's different being so far away from family around the holiday season, but what a wonderful place for them to come visit! My family will be coming for New Years, and Tim and I are planning on skipping Christmas and taking a vacation to the Big Island! Hope you and your family has a very merry and blessed Christmas!