Stronger For It

Just as Karley predicted… My race recap for our first “non-teaching” post of the summer. You can read more about why we are choosing to not blog about teaching things for a while here.

This past weekend I did it. I ran my first full marathon. And it was… hard, thrilling, excruciating, upsetting, and uplifting. But I did it! And in the end setting out to accomplish something that once seemed relatively impossible is a pretty amazing feeling!

If you have run a full marathon then you will probably understand what I mean here when I say that it took me by surprise just how hard it was. I’ve said this to a few people who haven’t run one and have been met with the “um ya of course it was.” But I was expecting it to be hard, I was expecting to feel like I couldn’t finish sometimes, and I was expecting it to take a lot of internal strength to keep pushing. But it was so much more than that.

I expected to find the first half of the course relatively enjoyable, and I did!

I expected to find it hard to push up the hill at 25 km, but I did that one with ease.

I expected to have people make me smile and laugh and cry along the way, and they did.

I expected to get a surge of energy seeing my amazing support crew, and I definitely did!

I expected to enjoy the energy of the crowd so much that I wouldn’t even need my iPod, but I wouldn’t have made it through without my music.

I expected to enjoy the route through a beautiful city, but I found myself discouraged by the amount of tunnels and highways.

I expected to find the joy in the moment, and so often I did.

I expected to push hard in the last kilometre, but I walked up the final hill choking back the tears.

I expected to cross the finish line with a feeling of complete satisfaction, but I only felt the exhaustion.

The marathon was proof to myself that I am strong and I can withstand a lot. Not once in that entire race did I doubt that I could finish the whole thing (although I was definitely doing the math to figure out if I could just walk the rest at a few points). That feeling when your body and mind are screaming at you to stop but your heart tells you to keep on going? That’s the moment where you realize the power of that inner strength.

It’s hard to describe the mixed emotions that I feel after this journey from deciding I would do a marathon back in December, through the four months of training, up to that finish line… But I am so happy that I took those first steps.

I learned to dig deep. I learned to push hard. And I am stronger for it.

And marathon number two? I’m coming for you someday!