My First - The Bucks County Marathon

So my story.  If you've been reading my blog, you know it, but a quick recap.  Overweight most of my life, lost 75 pounds and maintained my goal weight for over three years.   I also started running for the first time in my life three-plus years ago and have never stopped.   I wrote about it more in this post.,

http://journey2succeed.blogspot.com/2012/05/why-i-am-running-broad-street-run.html.  But you'll have to copy and paste it into your browser to get there, because for some reason, the link is not working.  Sorry.

My friend, Aimee, trained with me, but we knew that as the long runs approached, because of her busy schedule, that the likelihood of her completing the training and running the marathon were slim.  She ran with me as much as she could during training, and when she couldn't, she was there to encourage me and cheer for me when I was done.

About ten days before the marathon, Aimee surprised me with the news that she had registered for the marathon and was going to run it with me.  What?!!!!  This woman is tough and continues to show me every day that anything is possible.  With only 10 days left and no really long runs, she was running my first marathon with me.  Love you, Aimee!  It was a great experience for me and one I WILL NEVER EVER forget!  

We arrived at just in time to get a decent parking spot, get in line for the potty before the lines got too long (extremely long).  Then we waited, took some pictures, and tried to stay warm.

 At this point we were just trying to keep warm and have some fun.

And since I knew that had my dad still been alive, he would have definitely been proud of me, I decided to keep him with me.

So as the time approached, we lined up in our "waves".  We were in what I termed "the turtle wave", in the back.  Was so cool, because at this point, I started meeting people that I had been talking with on the Facebook page for the event.  I was wearing a new running shirt, and on the back I had in big silver glittery letters "Reen's Journey", and a few people came up and introduced themselves right before the start.  So cool!

And we were off!

And because of my "new running shirt", I also met more runners on the route that I was familiar with from the Facebook page for the event.  THAT was really fun!

At every single mile marker, there was a sign with the number on it.  I made sure that I touched every one of those signs as I got to it.  It was kind of a motivation to get to the next one.  I felt great pretty good up to mile 20.  We did our run/walk intervals, 11/1 and never gave up.  We did stop for one potty break and another time, we stopped for a stretch break, but other than that, we just kept moving forward.  There were only a few times where we extended that walk interval past the 1-minute interval, but not for too long.  We just kept moving forward.

I loved the fact that this was an out and back route.  As the people at the end started passing us on their return to the finish, it was a distraction and a little motivation for us to cheer for them as they passed us.  

I ran mile 24-25 for my dad.  I thought of him through that entire mile, and before I knew it, we were at 26.  Okay.  Maybe not before I knew it.  That mile was really really hard!

As we made the turn to come back into the park, we could see the finish line, but there was still a mile to go.  We had to do a complete loop inside the park, past the finish line, before we actually crossed over the finish line.  As we made our entrance into the park, my husband and Aimee's two young sons were there to greet it.  And here's the coolest part.  The boys ran that last mile with us and stayed with us to the finish!  Unfortunately, don't have a picture of the four of us together, but here's a fuzzy one of me.  Do I look happy?  Hell, yeah!

 We did it!

I know that if dad were alive, he would have been at that finish line cheering me on.  I know that if mom had not been recovering from recent hospitalization, she would have come up for Thanksgiving, and would have been there to cheer me on.  The fact that my big brother was there at the finish line cheering me on was so great!  I can still see the smile on his face as I came to the finish.   THAT is something I will never forget.  Love you, Big Brother!

And a HUGE SHOUT OUT for this event!  The course is out-and-back along the historic Delaware Canal State Park towpath trail from Washington Crossing Historic Park through New Hope.   Their second year, and they SOLD OUT!   Use the link below to see how beautiful it was. http://www.runbucks.com/.     (Link not working, but copy and paste it into your browser).  

Bravo to Pat McCloskey, Race Director, and to all the park people who cleaned up the trail after Hurricane Sandy, AND to all the volunteers at the water stops, who were there with water and Gatorade, directing us which way to go, and cheering us on.

I loved this event and will definitely keep it on the list for next year!  How can I not?  It was my first.