Tag Archives: marathon

July Highlights

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How are we already 8 days into August?!  I know it’s a little late, but I wanted to do a recap of some of my memorable parts of July.  Better late than never, right?

A very special highlight of July for me was being featured on pro triathlete Kelly Williamson’s blog. Kelly is a huge supporter of the MS community and she has been featuring some every day people (like me) that have MS and sharing their stories of living with MS.  This was an incredible honor for me!

Another big highlight of July is when I ran the Sauvie Island Foot Traffic Marathon and qualified for Boston!  Having run four previous marathons and missing three scheduled marathons leading up to this one, it made this race all the more sweet.  Rick and I had an amazing trip to Portland, got to spend time with good friends, and I earned a PR and BQ!

Seems like most else pales in comparison to this big race for July, but I also completed my first Olympic Triathlon.  While running is still my first love, it was fun to branch out and challenge myself in this new way. Hopefully I will get the chance to do more triathlons in the future. 

July was a great month filled with memorable events and good times. Here’s hoping for an equally wonderful August!

What were some memorable things for you in July?

It’s a long road to Boston

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As soon as I crossed the finish line of my first marathon almost 3 years ago, I new I wanted to do another one.  I could hardly walk for days and developed a nagging injury that brought some friends along, and they all stuck around for over a year and a half.  But, the marathon never left my mind.  I knew some day I’d be back, it just took a lot longer than I had hoped for.

At the finish of the Duke City Marathon 2009, 4:13

In 2011 I was slowly able to start running again, overcoming a long bout of Plantar Fasciitis, Achilles, and calf problems.  In the spring I put in for the St. George Lottery.  I’ve heard it’s really hard to get into, so I figured I wouldn’t get in for 2011 and would try again in 2012, and then get guaranteed entry for 2013.  So much for my plan…I received an email saying I got in for 2011 just as I was getting out of a boot for an Achilles injury.  With a little over 4 months to train from zero to 26.2, I set out to finally get to run my second marathon.  On October 1, 2011 I ran the St. George Marathon.  As my luck would have it, race day was one of the hottest on record for St. George.  I remember my husband dropping me off at the bus at 5am and it was already 78 degrees in the pitch dark morning.  While the race starts up the mountain where it is cooler, by the time you are running 4 hours back into town with no shade, it got hotter than I could handle.  My goal for the race was to hopefully qualify for Boston (I needed to hit 3:45).

Mile 7 feeling great!

I was on track to do this through mile 23, but then the heat got the best of me.  It took me about an hour to go the last 3.2 miles.  I still don’t know how I even made it to the finish line, but some how I did and then I got to visit all the nice volunteers in the medical tent while they brought me back from the depths of dehydration.  That was fun.

Getting an IV in the medical tent after the race

Seeing as I really only ran 23 miles that day, once I got home from Utah, I recovered fairly quickly.  I took it easy by doing some cross training and not running for a week, and then I got back out there.  A week after my recovery week I ran a half marathon with my friend who was running her first half.  We ran it in 1:55 and it felt great.

The Run Away Brides (Sherri and I) running the Day of the Tread Half Marathon October 16, 2011

Come back for Part 2 of “It’s a long road to Boston” when I run my next 2 marathons and go sub 4.

Have any of you run Boston or are working to qualify?  If so, what was your journey to get there?  Know anyone else that has a goal of running Boston some day?