bucket list*: run (& finish) a marathon

happy tuesday morning.

incase you've been absent from my life over the past 18 weeks, you'd know i had been training for this terrible awesome experience that i barely made it through, endured, conquered known as "the marathon." 26.2 miles of glory. because 26.3 would be crazy, right?

for some reason, i was feeling cocky confident arrogant on race day at 7am and decided to hop in the 3:45 time (at a 8:35 mile pace). i blame this poor decision on not having any caffeine or chocolate before the race.

legs & spencer

this is just before mile 8 when my dear friend, jd, had to part from me because he was running the half. my dear jd managed to put up my bitching complaining and was a great encouragement for sure. then he bailed to go do the smarter of the routes & finish his half. my morale was high the entire time, as you can see.

yep, this is for sure not even nearly long enough for me to regretting my decision to run this race.
right before mile 15 where i mentally/psychologically shut down.
"wait, jeff. you shut down at mile 15, didn't you have 10 more miles to go?! were you hurt?"
yes, i still had another 10 miles to go. i was not hurt, not an ounce of pain or discomfort (forreal). it was all mental and my competitive** drive bottomed out. i started questioning why i was even here or how much would i would rather be in bed. i just didn't want to run anymore. period.

after my quarter-life crisis at mile 20 and texting patrick from my iphone that "i hate my life," i got my act together and finished at a whopping 4:08:48. my goal was under 4 hours, but i'm just glad i finished.

running like a raptor has been proven to help your stride.

shortly after my embarrassing finish, i decided to hang out*** and make new friends in the medic tent with a nurse named carol. we chatted and she offered me a bag full of sugar in form of an IV. i complied. 

after 45 minutes of addison watching my skin color changed from bone to ecru to peach, we left and rejoiced. thank you my dear friends who came & watched my first AND last**** marathon. & thank you to jarred for waiting around for 4 hours to take some fab photos. sara even snapped some sweet shots, too!

* i don't really have a bucket list. just every time i do something that might be on said imaginary bucketlist, i just go ahead hashtag that #bucketlist. hey, it works! then i may actually have a bucketlist one day.

** lets be serious now, my competitive drive was getting to finish to drink a delicious boulevard stout. once i began to not crave beer or coffee after my face, i lost all hope.

*** i didn't want to talk to anyone after i finished the race. i just want to sleep and not even eat. after shoving away all 5 of my fans who dragged themselves there, i decided that visiting the medic tent was probably a wise idea. i also knew that i didnt have health care....so going home & going to said doctor/hospital would have cost me money. after a bag of some fluids and a cup or two of gaterade, i was back to good...er as good as one can be after running 26.2 miles. 

**** last one of the year....or until someone trains and runs the entire thing with me. ladies?