This past weekend I completed my first marathon.

Truthfully, I was nowhere near ready to be on that starting line, but it didn't stop me from finishing. After completing the Love Run here in Philly, my body was just off. I wasn't eating right, I wasn't sleeping right, and I sure as hell wasn't training right. Then, one week before we headed down the shore for marathon weekend I had a terrible bike crash after my wheel got stuck in the unused trolley tracks. I flew head first over my handlebars, landed on my head, face, right shoulder, right hand, and both knees. I was able to make it home, but had serious knee swelling for days, shoulder pain (couldn't put on my backpack without wincing), and some gnarly deep burns on my hand and knees. I couldn't swim due to the open wounds, couldn't ride much thanks to the swollen knee, and couldn't do any weight training thanks to the shoulder. Somehow, I mustered up enough grit to get a 15 mile run in the week before, but not much else.

As far as my long runs go, preparing for a marathon in the winter was not easy for me. My long runs were cut to no more than three hours tops and those three hour spurts included me getting in the car and heading to the gym to use the treadmill and get home in time for my husband to go to work. My one outdoor run on Easter Sunday was a disaster ending in ten agonizing miles. I had made a bad decision after visiting the podiatrist for some nagging foot issues to grab a new brand of shoes with more arch support (at his recommendation) and it ended up being an utter disaster. Going from my beloved Newtons at a 3mm drop to a pair of Nikes with what ended up being a 12mm drop proved to add insult to injury. I ended up heading into the race with barely completing a long run of 15 miles. Needless to say that after I hit those 15 on Sunday, the wall was hard.

We headed down to Avalon, NJ Friday afternoon and set up our cabin at the campground for the weekend. I had, the previous week, entered into the Cape May Earth Day 5k to take place on Saturday morning and wanted to get some rest before the long weekend. I had done the run a few years prior and really enjoyed the course. There is a cute little fair, a nice playground for kids, and the zoo is wonderful.  Although they changed the course, I, to my surprise, placed third in the female overall field. This was my first top three overall ever. I had gone out hard on the course hoping to just have a PB (a sub 25 minute run). It was a chilly morning and at about 1.8 miles in I started having a little bit of an asthma attack and walked about 20 feet (never should have done that!), but still ended up making a PB with a time of 24:16 (clock time 24:20) for the 5K. The entire time I was chasing another girl who I thought was the third woman, but, in fact was only the second. I ended up taking home the 3rd place female finisher and the 2nd place female my age group. It was definitely the morale boost I needed walking up to the start line the next morning in the Ocean Drive Marathon.



Because I had never competed in such an event, the entire idea of nutrition and carb-loading and all of the other stuff was still over my head. I gorged myself on gnocchi the night before (probably not enough calories I needed though) and stuck with my favorite pre-event breakfast of two multigrain waffles with cashew and hazelnut butter, banana, and a drop of maple syrup. I had all of my race nutrition ready before heading away for the weekend, but that all went out the door...or should I say out of my pocket...once the race started.

The first ten miles of the event were glorious. I was on pace, on point with my nutrition, but there was one thing I always end up forgetting about runs at the shore: the sun. Running at 9am in 40 degree weather here in Philly means to wear layers, a hat, gloves, and maybe sunglasses. Starting at 40 degree weather at the shore means that you will be stripping down to your tank by mile 8 and burning up by the 13 mile mark, which is exactly what I did. Shore sun at 60 degrees can feel just as hot as the sun in the peak of summer.

Three miles into the run the arm warmers cam off and tossed at an aid station. Mile 13 the tech shirt came off, and it wasn't until mile 15 that I realized that the sunblock I haphazardly applied never made its way to my shoulders, or arms, or legs, or many other places. In addition to the heat and sun, somewhere at the turnaround point at mile 13 I lost my gel bottle from my holder in addition to all of my electrolyte tabs for my drink and back up shot blocks. I was toast. With a super sensitive stomach, I cannot do Gatorade. In fact, the last time I drank Gatorade during a run was during the Rock and Roll Half Marathon two years prior where a good bit of it came right back up. I just cannot tolerate the sugars in Gatorade or G2, but, after loosing all of my SIS products (and having no one yell up to me that things were falling out of my bag -- something we all know trail runners would do *wink *wink), I was at the mercy of the orange stuff for the rest of the miles on. I felt my hands swelling with dehydration and knew I would have to gut (get it?) it out. By mile 15 my pace was dropping and by mile 19 I felt so terrible that my pace dropped below a 12 minute mile, something I had never done before. I had hit the wall and hit it hard. Never getting to fit in a training run past 15 miles really affected me, and although I was nowhere near ready to finish this marathon, I did not quit. The tiredness and stomach pains (with the regurgitating of Gatorade) did not keep me from enjoying the beautiful scenery of the shore, the salty smell of the air, and the fact that I was actually going to be able to slap that 26.2 mile sticker on the back of my car!


My goal was under 5 hours and when we reached the flat stretch in Sea Isle with the finish line in sight, I said "fuck it" and just ran that last mile as fast as I could. Fifty feet from the finish line by husband and son were waiting for me and my little boy ran all the way down the chute to the finish line.

It was not the prettiest race I have ever done, but those 4 hours and 48 minutes were all heart and drive. I am so glad that I did it.

Next up: Broad Street Run!

Two Septembers ago my husband entered me into my first half marathon. A egregious decisions at the time, I though. I had only a handful of races under my belt at the time and had only recently completed my first 10k run. Doubling ones distance over the course of a summer is usually an easy task, but with the amount of time I had to train and very limited availability for a weekly long run, I ended up walking up to the race (The Rock and Roll Philly Half) with a max distance of 10 miles completed.

The course was hot. I understood barely anything about race nutrition, and ended up running the event with a water bladder full of Gatorade, throwing some up once I hit that 10 mile mark. I finished in about 2:17-ish if I remember correctly, but was aiming for a 2:10 mark.

My first half marathon medal! I was so proud at the time...proud and sore!
Now, flash forward to last year. Last year I began to wade into the waters of trail running. I had always been more of a hiker before and admit poking fun of those in the niche sport who wandered into the woods with zero water or sustenance for almost an entire day, but after a 15K in the mud and rain in Reading, PA, I was kinda hooked. I secretly watched (and still do) ultra running films at my desk at work and have been dreaming of my first trail ultra since that day. Not ready to push that far yet, I entered into the Charlie Horse Trail Half Marathon in Mohoton, PA last spring. It was a rocky, muddy, hot course up and down into Birdsboro and through a makeshift obstacle course before leading to the finish line stocked with burgers and beer. The average time to complete the half is around 2.5 hours from what I read and I watched a few pull off to the road and call it quits after falling on those lovely Pennsylvania rocks over...and over...and over.

Somehow, again I pulled off third in my age group. All I kept thinking was at least there were people who did worse off that I did. 😄😄😄

Four months later I threw myself a curve ball for my next half marathon in Ocean City, NJ and completed the MS 100 ride the afternoon before, which is a hundred mile ride from outside of Cherry Hill, NJ, around a bunch of town homes, farms, and highways and ending at the shore. It was a pretty hot weekend so I spent the evening hydrating, got a few hours of sleep, and set off to try to complete my first sub-2 half marathon. As the morning started and the sun beamed down, I knew it was going to be hard. After keeping on pace for my first hour, the burn out set in, and, despite the dozens of volunteers handing out ice water and towels at the 7 mile mark, dehydration and severely blistering feet resulting from shoe issues (always shoe issues when you are a size 5 and 90% of companies do not make shoes that small in a wide size available at any store), I missed my goal by six minutes.


before the ms 100 ride followed by farmer's tan sunburn and  absolute exhaustion 9am the following morning
Since going through races for my 2018 calendar I have been determined to break that two hour mark. For a lot of people that is a super easy task, and for some it's not. I'm not a naturally talented runner. Throughout life I have been lucky to be naturally talented at a lot of things and can do many things without much though or effort - not running. My asthma kicks me in the ass at some point every run. My face turns beet red for whatever reason after about 20 minutes and I have had more injuries that I care to count any more - mainly in my feet, and most of which will probably never go away. It's probably for these reasons that I enjoy doing it so much - because it's hard and it sucks. I have to work twice as hard to shave even a minute off of a PR and it could take me a year to do it.


This past weekend was the Philadelphia Love Run. I was determined, especially after having a crappy 20k trail run the previous weekend, to make that mark.

Early Sunday morning, again in the sub-freezing weather, I hopped on the Broad Street Line to the Parkway here in my hometown of Philadelphia and again set off to break that mark. I was cold and battling some sort of stomach bug (all three of us ended up with it within 2 days at home), but otherwise felt good. This was my first time doing the Love Run, although a few years back it was supposed to be my first half marathon. My two favorite cousins had come up from Carolina to run the event, but I was midway through physical therapy after for not one, but two injuries I got hit with. I did, however, make it up to the even to cheer them on and ended up running alongside my cousins in a separate lane for part of the event cheering them on and taking photos. I think I ended up clocking ten miles that day on my pedometer anyways. When the registration opened for this year, I knew I wanted to do the race.

Despite the temperature, I was making good pace, kept at my nutrition and hydration plan (I usually carry my own water even though they have aid stations - I have no desire to stop and wait) with my SIS products, and my lungs felt pretty clear. At the five mile mark I saw that I had made it sub-45 minutes and a big smile came across my face, but it soon faded as we approached the two hilly sections of the run. Now you don't think of Philadelphia as having hills, but, in fact, there are quite a few after you trek just northwest of the main part of the city. After slowing my pace reaching the top, I knew I needed to kick myself back into gear if I wanted to have enough time to get back down the parkway and finish in a sub-2 time. After some twists and turns, the 3 mile straight shot to the finish line came into view. I have run this strip a dozen times before and seeing that I had less than 30 minutes left to make my goal I pushed to the end.


As I turned the corner to the finish line at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, I had less than a minute to go. I was cold and feeling tired, but I crossed the line in 1:59:25. I had done it.

As I shuffled towards the subway cold and wet from sweating through too many layers all I kept thinking was, "How on earth am I going to do this distance x2 in less than a month?" - meaning, that I need to kick my ass into gear for my first marathon this coming April. Anxious and incredibly nervous to the point where I'm not sure yet if I am excited, I worry about being able to finish through the ongoing foot pain I have been suffering through from multiple injuries, about having the strength to muster through the miles, and about maintaining focus and adequate nutrition to keep my energy up to get through the event in a respectable time.

We will see.