Ashreinu, Thank you so much for your kind words!
The race was absolutely incredible and magical, but there were times when things got so tough, I didn't know if I was going to pass out or not. I may have shed a few emotional and physical painful tears from time to time. How I was able to crawl through that finish line still amazes me today when I think about the whole experience.
I would suggest for someone to train for a good full year for a marathon. Maybe even enter in some 5ks, 10ks, 1/2 marathons, etc races, while training, just to give yourself a feel for what the real race day could be like. I wish I could say that I trained for the proper amount of time, or that I read up on everything regarding racing, but I didn't, and boy was that seriously irresponsible and dangerous of me. I trained very little prior to the race. I kept pushing off training, or only running here and there once in a while.
Come race day, I was incredibly nervous, my recent long runs were no more than 8 miles. As I began to run, I felt as if I was gliding along the paths. This feeling stayed strong within me for the first 15 miles which was done in 3 hours exactly. Then suddenly I felt sick to my stomach, my knees were giving out, I had the shivers. I slowed down significantly, but I didn't allow myself to stop because I knew that the moment I stopped moving, I would not be able to go on with the race. After some tears, nausea, chills, and some purging, not to mention how much pain I was experiencing, I made it through the finish line. And to top it off, the volunteers, and cheerers were absolutely incredible! (Not to mention the nice solid medal they gave me the moment I passed the finish).
As I may have mentioned before, not too long ago I started having this love for running. To elaborate on that "love" and "experience" would take me literally hours to write.
Thank You All for the amazing support, and good luck to those who are in the midst of training for a race. To all those avid runners out there, keep up the amazing work, and if you are thinking about, or in the process of becoming a runner, don't give up, anything you accomplish, even if it's less than a mile, it's more than you would do if you had not picked up your feet to begin with.
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