It's official - I procrastinated / had a short term memory loss about this blog so here I am trying to make up for lost time. Before I start into this year, a quick overview of last year's marathon and how my fundraising finished up. To say that it is difficult to put the whole race-day experience into words is an understatement, but I'll do my best to give a little inside insight. The night before I slept fairly well considering my combination of nerves and excitement, but the alarm rang early and I was up and getting dressed at 4:30am. Anyone who knows me knows that at 4:30am I am usually not a happy person, but this morning I couldn't wait to get going. Once I was dressed and had my bright green bag packed, for the second year in a row I took out a black sharpie and participated in my tradition of 'arm motivation'. By arm motivation, I mean writing on my forearm each mile that I was expecting to see my parents or other relatives or friends. While the Boston Marathon is run with over 25,000 people and hundreds of thousands of spectators, one of my favorite parts of the race is checking to see which upcoming mile I can expect to see a familiar face and give out a nice, sweaty hug. I arrived at the DFMC meeting place early, thanks to my spectacular driver Kelli : ) and made the walk over to the dozens of yellow school buses with some DFMC teammates. This year, I didn't have as good luck as the year prior finding a short line, and so by the time I got on a bus and arrived at the DFMC refuge near the starting line it was a bit later than I had hoped to arrive. I still managed to have enough time to settle in, have some food, and send my green bag with my extra clothes onto the bus to wait for me at the finish line.
I chatted with a couple DFMC teammate friends, and then headed out to the starting line - race time was finally here! As I crossed the starting line, I had the familiar rush of adrenaline and excitement as I had the year prior. If no one has told you about the beginning of the Boston Marathon - let me inform you. I've never been to the running of the bulls in Spain, but I would imagine the feeling is similar. Although I wasn't a speed demon by any means, I started out running a ten-minute/mile pace with my fellow teammates - a speed at which I felt would be respectable. But the first few miles of the marathon, and in particular the first mile, is always overwhelming. Picture yourself standing still amongst thousands of people sprinting past you in the street; that's about how I felt. Except for the fact that I was moving, and moving at a pace that was slightly faster than I expected to be able to maintain for the duration of the race, and these people were still sprinting by at light-speed. I kept looking over my shoulder to find the end of the line of people, expecting to be trotting along by myself sooner or later. The end never came, just more sprinting people. Luckily I had the pleasure to be running with three other lovely DFMC ladies, each of which I had gotten to know during group training runs and been inspired by their stories. One was a fellow Friar and rugby player, running her first ever marathon raising money in honor of relatives. Another, a special education teacher my age who had lost her mother in December during the training to cancer, yet carried on with her training and fundraising with unthinkable grace. And the fourth member of our 'turtle' group, a lady who was celebrating her 7th year of being cancer free following a battle with breast cancer. I had the pleasure to be inspired and motivated by each of these 3 ladies, and am proud to have shared the experience of training and racing with them.
Anyway, back to the race - my parents for the second year in a row made meticulous plans of how to see me at several different points during the marathon. We had driven the marathon course prior to the race, and agreed on the points where I would look for them - they had so many pages of google maps and highlighted routes printed out, I'm not sure how they kept track. I saw them half a mile into the race and handed off my camera that I had carried around that morning. My mother brought her step stool, an enormous flag, pom poms, and multiple signs which she rotated for each stop. They were pretty easy to pick out in the crowd : ) As our 'turtle' group passed the miles we each saw family and friends who cheered our group on. The miles seem to blur together now, but the faces from the crowd cheering us on because of our Dana Farber singlets is something I won't forget. It was meaningful because I knew that these people had in some way been touched by cancer, and for that moment we shared a bond. It was the reason I was running in the first place - because cancer had touched my family, and I wanted to do something to make a difference. I ran for my aunts, I ran for my grandfathers, I ran for friends of friends, and I ran for a cure. I teared up at points during the marathon thinking about these people and what it meant to me to be able to run for them. I still get chills just thinking about it. I had numerous friends who stood on the sidelines long after the Kenyans had sprinted by to see my limp by, and to them I am so thankful. Looking forward to seeing my family and friends kept me going through some of the tough miles - who am I kidding, all of the miles were tough! Mile 25 passed by, and the Dana Farber cheering group was on the sidelines with some of the Jimmy Fund patients in the group. Those smiling faces carried me along that last mile, as I slowly made my way with a few friends and my uncle who had joined me for encouragement the last several miles. As I crossed the Finish Line, my legs were burning and my whole body was in pain and exhausted. I had finished. I wasn't fast...I wasn't even semi-fast. But I had finished the marathon 16 minutes faster than the year before, I hadn't died (yet), and I had a smile on my face. It doesn't get much better than that.
My fundraising total for last year was $4,350, bringing my two year total to $9,125 - a figure that I couldn't have imagined I would be able to raise. A huge thank you goes out to all my supporters - without you, I couldn't have done it. Together we are taking steps forward in the cancer fight.
All of which brings me to this year! I am BACK for my third year running with Dana Farber, and am more excited than ever to be in the midst of training and fundraising. This year I stepped up my training and am following the intermediate plan, which means I'll be running 16 miles tomorrow. More updates to come!
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