Emotional

I have been wanting to write a post with this title since last week because this - emotional - is what I was then and, surprisingly, am still. The reason? The achievement of that lifelong dream you all know about by now - running my 1st marathon, in case you don't.

Every time I thought about it last week, I was all full of emotions. Nervous, excited, scared, sentimental, I was them all and then some. I never thought I was not going to finish but I wanted to do well. I had a couple of goals: no walking since I had never done so during training and to finish between 4 hrs 47 minutes and 5 hrs 12 minutes, and most preferably, within 5 hours. I never walked once and, at 4:56:39, I accomplished my time goal as well. It was just huge.

So, what was it like? It was AWESOME, not pain free but awesome. I had said here before that my 20-miler was like giving birth all over again. Well, the marathon was too but in a different way. I never quite suffered. I never "felt" it until mile 22. That's when I lost my concentration and focus fiddling with my iPod and had 2 miles of mental more than physical discomfort. I got over it quick and picked up the pace on the last 2 miles to the finish line. It was, bottom line, just a great run.

Do you know what it's like to have nearly 5 hours to think and feel, too? Amazing and divine, that's what. Physical pain is, I don't know, primal. Let me just say I felt the closest I ever have to myself and to God other than during the natural birth of my 2 boys. It was a glorious, magical thing.

There's so much more I could tell about it, I'll have to do it in several different posts. I think I'll start a category just for The Marathon. I'll have to. I have so much more to say about it. I want to write it all down for posterity. It's not every day you check a lifelong dream off your list, you know. It's not every week. The whole experience means so much to me in fact, I have already signed up for next year's marathon and I am actually planning on doing another in the next couple of months as well. I'm just waiting for my body to fully recover to get back out on that court again. As my 2-year-old Dyllie (Dylan) says, "Mama, let's play!" You betcha! I can't wait.