This year’s Long
Beach Marathon was very special because it marked my 10 year anniversary
running the Long Beach events. I
joined AREC in March of 2003 when I decided to run my first marathon. Since then, I’ve run every year—whether
it be the 5k, the half or the full.
I trained hard for this full.
This was my 16th marathon and some fulls I haven’t trained as
hard or felt as strong. I wanted
to feel strong—goal #1. I wanted
to beat my time that I ran this past March at LA (6:06:13)—goal #2. I wanted to make it to the Shock Top
beer garden for Beach Bums in time, before they ran out of beer—goal #3.
I was really hoping to come in between
5:45-5:30. Last year at Long
Beach, I ran my personal worst marathon.
This year, I ran my personal best time at 5:19:05! My last PR was in 2005! It’s been a while since I’ve PRed in
any distance and it felt great!
Hard work pays off. I
worked hard to lose 30 lbs. (since January.) I trained hard and got in the miles. I tease my running buddy, June, for not
letting me take walk breaks during training. (She can be so mean! Tee hee!) Thank you, June, for pushing me and helping me be a stronger
runner! During the race, I didn’t
walk until Mile 14 and after that just took a few short walking break. I never hit the wall. I felt really good and kept pushing
myself.
It was so great to see so
many friends on the course! Thank
you to Colleen, Amy and Tom for running with me! Thank you to Rosie for waiting at Livingston to cheer me on
and give me water! I’m so thankful
to Kristen, for running the first 20 miles with me! The marathon is a journey that
culminates months of training, icing, stretching and pain. It is such a challenge and I’m so
grateful to share it with awesome running buddies who trained with me for
months and met with me at 5 am, 5:30 am, 6:00 am…because my schedule was so
crazy in the summer.
Thank you to
Tina, Stephanie, June, Kristen and James for being amazing friends and running
buddies! Thank you to all AREC
friends…you are what makes this club so great. You all mean so much to me and I am a better person because
of the friends I have made here and for all of the inspiration you’ve given to
me.
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