Nike Women's Marathon!!

This post is a long-time coming...
Are you ready for this?!

I FINISHED MY MARATHON!!!!

Woo Hoo! Oh yeah! Uh-huh!

What a great feeling it is to have accomplished this feat!  And you know what??  I've signed up for 2 more since!  Hahaha!  But more on that later. 

For now, I will recap my first marathon, and the wonderful weekend surrounding it...

 There are so many pictures, and honestly I don't have the time to give this post the proper dedication it deserves, but I like to think the pictures speak for themselves.  My plan is to continually update this post as I find the time.  I don't want to forget the amazingness of my first marathon. 
But for now, here are the highlights:

- time with family and friends
- Ghirardelli  chocolate
- Golden Gate glory
- Airport terminals with Starbucks and giant pretzels
- Public transit
- hidden bathrooms
- Nike Women's Expo
- Matching shirts made last minute
- rain, rain and more RAIN
- Tiffany's and firemen
- Boudin soup bowls
- Inspiration EVERYWHERE
-Bananas
- Survivors
- Run, walk, run... repeat
- TEAM
- Perseverance 26.2

The Inspiration Dinner, the night before the race, was just that - inspiring.

 Filled with coaches, mentors and honored patients, the hallways leading

to the dinner were filled with cheers, shouts, cowbells and clapping hands.

It was AMAZING.  

I wasn't in the best mood when I entered the hall

(for a few reasons not worth mentioning)

but once I heard the cheers and saw the mass of people, I was instantly cheered up.

This whole TEAM thing is so worth it.

4:30 comes early at anytime of the year, but during marathon training it becomes pretty standard.

Crazy right?  Yeah.

4:30 was the meet up time for the early starters (a.k.a walk/runners)

and we were almost awake at this point :)

It seemed so special to have this early start option.  It was neat to have our Coach (Brad, right)

and Captain (Byron, left) run with us the first 6 miles.

 

It makes my heart so happy to know this money is being put to such amazing good use!

Yummy pizza our first night in town.

Danielle ran about 50 yards with me at mile 16 and just kept snapping pics.

It was pretty awesome, but can you tell by my face that smiling for a photo

isn't exactly what I want to be doing at that moment?
lol!

Danielle and I spent all day Saturday (day before the race) seeing the city.

We had a great time!

All the participants names were listed on the Nike Town wall.  So cool!

Jayme, Tricia and I had shirts made up that said "I am running the Nike Woman's Marathon" on the front

and "26.2 GO TEAM" on the back.

We wore them all day Friday and had many compliments about them.

This was the best damn bagel I've ever had!

The bagel was soggy with rain and only plain, but I was a happy camper with it in my belly!

After 26.2 miles I was STARVING.  

Puffy, swollen "Shrek fingers"

Mmmm!!!  Boudin's sourdough bread.

O. M. G!