Marathon #30 for me. I finished the race with a young girl that was doing her first marathon. It was so sweet seeing her accomplish her goal. She is a young nursing student that decided she wanted to run a marathon and today she did. ❤️. I highly recommend this race to anyone that wants to run a new race. It's amazing!
 |
| There she is behind me... we were about to go up ANOTHER hill! We had just passed a water stop where they were handing out the beads I have around my neck. We had been back and forth passing each other as we jogged / walked. It wasn't until those last few miles that I started talking to her. She told me how hard nursing school was and that she decided she would try her first marathon. She had hurt her ankle like 3 weeks prior to the race so she was struggling those last miles. I was also pushing through my own pain during that time and we just kind of bonded. We quickly became running friends. 💕 She was amazed that I didn't start running until I was 40. The closer we got the finish line, she said... "let's finish together"... I told her I'd run a bit more with her, but I wanted her to go on in alone and get that picture of her finishing her first! Her parents were waiting for her at the finish line. It was so SWEET! I still remember my first. You just never forget it. 😍 |
 |
| Here we are at the finish headed inside to the athlete village for food. |
Little Rock was awesome. I can’t say enough about the race. From all the wonderful volunteers, the decorations, the aid stations were plenty and the porta potties! the cheer support along the course to the amazing huge medal. It was all amazing…. Except those few giant hills at the end 😩
We stayed at the Marriott which I didn't realize was the same place for Expo and Finish line. It was so nice not having to drive anywhere. We did walk 2 blocks to Samatha's Tap Room and had a very nice meal. Little Rock did not disappoint!
And I am forever grateful for my crazy friends, Felicia and Penny that love to travel and go to races. We had decided on this bucket list race way before my hip/back issues..... I literally debated on pulling out of the event... but since they had an 8 hour time limit... I was like what the heck... I'm going to go do this thing and get that HUGE medal. I still can't believe how big the medal is!
 |
Expo Pictures... they had so many neat decorations.
|
 |
We found Joe right before we started and grabbed a quick pic.
|
 |
| The medal is as big as my head! |
 |
| My sweet friend with awesome calves! Felicia. |
 |
| Check out those huge medals! Penny, me & Felicia.. we did it! I believe it was marathon #7 for Felicia and #44 for Penny! |
 |
| and of course we found Joe... he had finished so fast he had already changed clothes when we saw him to grab a picture... he's holding his medal up next to my head... once again.. Notice how HUGE! |
It was a quick weekend as we left on Saturday morning, ran on Sunday and drove back home Sunday after the race... I don’t recommend driving 5 hours after doing 26.2 miles … but sometimes you got to. It’s called work 😜❤️ ... So sorry Penny & Felicia had to go to work on Monday.... I ended up sleeping till 7am and then doing lots of cleaning around my house.. DANG POLLEN... but I crashed for a 2 hour nap that afternoon. And the drive was actually not that bad when you have friends to laugh and talk with to keep you busy.
I'm so glad I did not back out of going to this race. It had been a bucket list for me and now I've complete it. I give God all the glory for giving me the strength and endurance to finish. 🙏💓
I'm thinking I'll rest now a few months.... 😁😂
No comments:
Post a Comment