17 miles D-O-N-E!
Saturday the Children's Hospital Miles for Miracles team was bussed out to mile 9 on the marathon course in Natick. We hopped off the bus and immediately started running towards the finish line in Boston.
On the bus and along the way I met two great young women who run at the same pace as I do so the three of us ran together and chatted the whole time. The conversation made the time pass as we ran through Wellesley and Newton. As we started the hills we kept our minds off the steady incline and kept our feet steadily moving.
It worked! As we passed Boston College and entered Brighton I said "We're done with Heartbreak Hill!" My two new friends gasped. We hadn't even noticed!
From there we weaved through the streets of Boston. Coming down into Kenmore Sq and seeing the Citgo sign was incredible... but I will tell you... there's still a ways to go once that sign is in view for the first time.
At this point it got tough. My hips, right knee, right ankle, thighs and calves were begging me to stop. The finish line was so close though and the support from my two teammates pushed me through.
Right onto Hereford, left onto Boylston and the finish was in sight. Dodging and getting around pedestrians on the sidewalk was like our real life version of Frogger. Some people didn't bother to listen as we called out "On your left!" Others gladly stepped out of the way for us and some gave us nice "You're almost there!" shout outs. (We were wearing our Children's Hospital singlets so people knew that we were training. If you ever see runners out on a training run, cheer for them! Those words of encouragement helped keep me going!)
Finally we finished! Sighs of relief and high fives all around! However, stopping was more painful. Walking up to wear our bags were at the BSC and going down the stairs was excruciating.... but knowing I had just finished my longest run to date made it well worth it.
After, we joined the team at the Rattlesnake for a celebratory drink and some re-fueling. Many teammates stood around and drank beers as if they'd just took a walk through the park. I had to sit, legs up, and could barely bring food to my mouth. Ha!
Looking forward to tapering off for a couple of weeks and then building back up to 21 miles - the longest I'll run before the actual race.
I've got 9 more weeks of training, 9 more miles to go and $1400 more to reach my fundraising goal of $4500! The fact that I have 17 miles under my belt, my official running singlet in hand, and have now seen what the majority of the route looks like... makes this very real! Ahhh! =)
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