RACE DAY.

5 months of training.

Early morning alarms....5:00...4:45...

Training in snow.

Training in rain.

Training on ice.

Training in heat.

Saturday morning looooooong runs....every. single. saturday.

Sore Muscles.

Complete and utter exhaustion.

It all came down to this....

RACE DAY.

To say I was nervous would be an understatement.

To say I was excited would be an understatement.

I had worked SO HARD for this.

The day was beautiful, but also warm.  I'm not a girl that loves running in a lot of heat.  I quickly learned at water stations to drink a cup, and dump a cup on my body.  It helped maintain my body temperature.

The course was quite hilly and I didn't have a lot of training experience on hills.  Regardless, I pushed through.  

My goal was to RUN the ENTIRE 13.1 miles.

It took me 2 and a half hours....but I DID IT.

Here are a few picture of the day:

Early morning picture before our races started!  Matt ran the 5k with Eva and Jaden.  BOTH kiddos did amazingly well and ran the entire course!

My running partner Traci and I as we headed to the finish line!

One of my favorite pictures from the whole day....as I ran towards the finish line I saw Isaac's mom cheering us on from the sidelines.  I reached out to grab her hand.  The only time all day I got teary-eyed.

My other sister in running!!  Jill and I also trained together!  Her drive and endurance amazed and inspired me.  Notice our medals??  We joked that we were never taking them off.  We worked WAY too hard for them!!!

Our good friend Sam finished his first MARATHON!!  Amazing!

An amazing weekend.

An experience I'll never forget.