are you serious?

As I sit here and watch the Olympic Women's Marathon, I am thinking to myself, are you serious? Am I suppose to do that? These women that are running, or any woman that has ever participated in a marathon, have been put on this imaginary pedestal in my world. They are amazing athletes and to think that I am going to run a marathon makes me weak at my knees! Yeah, yeah, I know I won't be running quite as fast as them, but this is something that I never in my life thought I would do because it seemed so impossible. I am going to run a marathon. Are you serious?

I can honestly say I haven't really put much thought to how far I am going to be running. Mainly because if I think about it to much, it does make me nervous. If I am doing something as big as this, I like to not think and just do. Similar to when I went skydiving, if I had thought about exactly what I was going to do, I probably wouldn't have gone through with it! So to think about running for 4 plus hours... well, lets just not talk about it. I do know that I find a lot of strength from all of the cancer patients that I am essentially running for. I think about Ashley and what all she went through and how strong she was, and 26.2 miles seems like a piece of cake. I can only imagine what someone going through chemotherapy feels like. I have a hard enough time dealing with the way my body responds after a long run, so dealing with all of the side effects of chemo is beyond my comprehension. I am so thankful for all of the research and treatment options they have these days and I am thankful I have had this opportunity to help raise money to help fund research to find a cure! 

On Friday morning I ran my long run with Rachel and Anja. Rachel and I volunteered to help out at an event on Saturday morning, so we decided to run Friday morning so we would be able to work at the event. We did a solid 14 miles! It was quite brutal at times as I was trying to work through a hamstring injury and Rachel was working through crooked knee caps! Anja was as healthy as a horse, so she had to hold back a little for me and Rachel. We started at 5:30 in the morning and did a nice little course through the Augusta Road area. I figured I wouldn't be able to move on Friday afternoon, but I actually felt pretty good. I certainly slept quite a bit the past couple of days trying to recover and help get my hamstring back to full strength. The great thing about these runs is that after about 3 miles, I get into the swing and I don't even think about how far or long I have been running. I get finished and think, are you serious? Did I just run 14 miles? It makes thinking about running 26.2 miles that much easier. So I am now that much closer to running a marathon and it makes me so excited about crossing that finish line!