New York Marathon 2016 Conquered

Well it's over!  All the weeks of training finally came to an end on November 6th.  I trained for 12 weeks and this race felt different than when I ran it last year.  I got a new job this school year and now have different work hours.  As every new job, it can be stressful trying to get used to the new change in your life.  I no longer run before work and since I have to be at work at 7:05, I now run after work and that is still something I'm trying to get used to.  I have also gained 5 pounds since I started working and my nutrition hasn't been where I wanted it to be and I felt it on this marathon.  The weather was a bit warmer than I wanted it to be.  It started in the 50s, but it wasn't windy so that was good.

I think I might of started too fast that around mile 15, I started to feel a new pain I hadn't experienced before.  My achilles tendon on my right foot started flaring up.  I felt it going up a hill and had no choice but slow it down.  I knew I still had a ways to go and there was nothing stopping me.  I had worked too hard to qualify and had put in the training for this pain to keep me from finishing.  I ate some margarita flavor GU chomps hoping the salt in them would help.  One of the things I have learned from running is that you have to listen to your body when you feel pain.  I made myself back off my pace and just prayed it would go away.  At mile 18, I was able to pick up my pace again until I came to another bridge going up hill and it would come back.   My pace after that was all over the place.

View from running one of the bridges.

Eddie and my son, Fabian were able to track and find me two times.  I was really surprised they even saw me with all those people, but they did.  It made me happy to see them and somehow it gave me motivation to finish strong.  My goal was to beat my time from last year, but missed it by a minute something.  I finished in 3:35:37 and I'm happy with that.

Time to celebrate with friends!

Mother and son make cover of Runner's World magazine..lol.

Running with friends made it fun this year.  It was their first time to run NYC and happy I was able to give them my free pass from my Might Milers running club I coordinated at Binion Elementary last year.  This is the biggest block party and my favorite fun marathon I have ever ran!  Being able to say I qualified and ran the world's largest marathon is still so surreal to me!  I may never be able to qualify for this again, but my dream goal finally came true!  It's a HUGE check off my bucket list!