Meredith has been my cheerleader all year. She'll actually be taking on her 3rd (or 4th??) marathon in 23 days (according to her facebook status!) so she's practically a seasoned pro... at the ripe age of 22. We went to see "Spirit of the Marathon" together in February right after I signed up. Meredith's been dropping me words of encouragement and advice all year and I can't thank her enough.
6 Hours, 29 neighborhood and numerous gel packs later, Chicago Marathon 2008 is finished! The temp reached 84 degrees that day, and 33,000 runners participated.
A big thank you to all of my supporters for helping to make it happen. Adrienne and Dave made sure I was fueled at mile 9, Teri met up with me at mile 13 to run by my side through the hottest part of the race, I bumped into Rodrigo and Addy at mile 18 while grabbing more gel packs, and Rodrigo found me on the bridge and sprinted the last 200 meters with me (in his flip flops!). It was awesome!
And even more amazing is over $700 will be donated to Hope Runs, which will help its children's program in Tanzania and Kenya. Read more about it at www.hoperuns.org. And fittingly so, the male Kenyans dominated the race this year. Read the Tribune's coverage here.
Along with all the congrats and hugs and handshakes, a question I keep getting is will I do it again next year. If you asked me around mile 23, the answer would have been a exasperated, exhausted and angry " NO WAY!" But a month has passed, the pain wore off, so only more time will tell. Running is addictive so odds are, another marathon is on the horizon. :)
Friday, October 10, 2008
My friends out east
This week I received faraway support from my friends on the east coast who will be taking on the NYC marathon next month. Atheni, who was student gov prez while were at LUC, donated $26.20 to Hope Runs (love the symbolism!) and sent me encouraging words about conquering this Sunday. Love her!
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