Run for Pride: Done and Done

Four months ago, when I started on this journey, my goal was to finish the marathon. In my head, I had said I wanted to make sure I finished in under 5:30 hours.

As my training progressed and I became more comfortable with my marathon pace, I realized that I could probably make it in under 5:00. I knew that I have always told myself that if I was to actually run a marathon, I wanted to do it right. I wanted to truly run as much of it as I possibly could. In order to do that, I followed my training plan nearly to a T and, quite frankly, became obsessed. I tried to read as much as I could, talk to as many people as possible to get tips, and find inspiration through reading, going to running movies, and even running with a man who has been considered the most fit person on the planet.

While my running roots have always centered on "Running for Pride," this mantra came full circle towards the end of my training. As mentioned in a previous post, one of my later long runs was done with Allison and I used it as an opportunity to pick her brain about running marathons. I mentioned to her that I didn't want to finish the marathon thinking I could have done better. She said something that stuck with me, "You'd rather finish your first marathon smiling and feeling good, than come in barely finishing and feeling horrible." I took this advice to heart, and listened to my body, ran conservatively, and truly finished with PRIDE.

I ran as much of the race as I possibly could, which was nearly the whole 26.2, and passed a lot of people in the last 4 miles.

After the race yesterday, I couldn't quite wrap my head around what I had just done. Nothing had really sunk in. It all seemed a bit surreal. It wasn't until today, when I took a close look at these last few pictures, that I knew I did what I set out to do.

You'll have to enlarge these pictures, but I think you can see that I finished by Running for Pride. I came in with a smile on my face, just as my dad had predicted.

I enjoyed the moment, just like my friends told me to do.

I celebrated with those that had been a part of my journey.

(waving to my family and friends in the picture above and high-fiving my running mates below Mike in green, Donna in greenish, and Del in white--throwing water at me)