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Man oh MAN.\u00a0 This week has officially kicked my behind! As some of you know, I ran the Naperville Marathon yesterday.\u00a0 Apparently I took some kind of crazy pill and thought it would be a good idea to run another marathon in a matter of weeks. \u00a0 I was not signed up for it all along, the opportunity just kind of was presented to me within hours after the Chicago marathon (by some seriously awesome people in my life who believe in me more than I believe in myself).\u00a0 Although I had my doubts, when this opportunity arose I really truly wholeheartedly believed that this was my chance.\u00a0 I believed that this was why I didn’t hit my time at Chicago, that this is what God planned all along.\u00a0 I seriously would have bet a million dollars on it, that is how much I believed. In the 4 weeks in between the two races I did a few long runs at pace and even a track workout and felt great.\u00a0 This is gonna be it, I thought.\u00a0 It will all work out. \u00a0 On race day morning, I felt giddy and excited but not nervous at all.\u00a0 Shain was giving me his usual pre-race pep talks (they are the best)…I felt so ready. My legs certainly did not feel fresh having just run a marathon 4 weeks prior, but they felt good.\u00a0 I can do this.\u00a0 It will happen today.\u00a0Then I hit mile 19 and it all went downhill.\u00a0 And by downhill I mean uphill.\u00a0 This course was constant hills, it was insane.\u00a0 I always thought that if you trained properly, you shouldn’t hit this so called “marathon wall”.\u00a0 But yet again, I hit it and I hit it hard.\u00a0 My friend Steve who was helping me pace had quite the job of keeping me going, if it were not for him I probably would have called Shain at mile 23 to come pick me up and bring a bag of Sour Patch Kids and a McFlurry while he was at it .\u00a0 The pain in my legs was tremendous.\u00a0 I actually cracked the side of my I-pod slightly because I was clenching it so tightly.\u00a0 I kept telling myself to leave it all here, don’t have any regrets, this is my chance.\u00a0 But I just could not pull through.\u00a0 3:37:45 The heartbreak of letting myself down for a second time was pretty rough.\u00a0 As I met some close friends and family at the finish, I could not help but sob.\u00a0 I have the best support system, I really do.\u00a0 And they were all quick to get me back into perspective. Am I telling you all this so that you can feel sorry for me?\u00a0 HECK no. \u00a0 I will be just fine. \u00a0 I have to remind myself of how far I have come over the years.\u00a0 I could make myself sick thinking about all I could have done differently.\u00a0 This is just a race and I must keep moving forward to my goal.\u00a0 When I qualify for Boston I won’t be in excruciating pain, I will be able to smile as I cross the finish and I will make it in plenty of time. I chose to not put up the pictures of me grimacing in pain or sobbing while running, you are welcome. I think sometimes we think things are “meant to be” or we think we are following the right path, but often we are just on our own agenda.\u00a0 Just when you think you have it figured out God spins you around in a different direction.\u00a0 Sometimes we just have to have faith.\u00a0 We have to just trust in that higher power and trust that things will work out how they are supposed to.\u00a0 They might not be how we envision,\u00a0But it will always be better.\u00a0 Better than we could ever imagine.\u00a0 Keep working hard and keep the faith.\u00a0 Never ever give up. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.blessedinthemess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.blessedinthemess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.blessedinthemess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.blessedinthemess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.blessedinthemess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1034"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.blessedinthemess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1034\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1041,"href":"http:\/\/www.blessedinthemess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1034\/revisions\/1041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.blessedinthemess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.blessedinthemess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.blessedinthemess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/a>In the 4 weeks in between the two races I did a few long runs at pace and even a track workout and felt great.\u00a0 This is gonna be it, I thought.\u00a0 It will all work out. \u00a0 On race day morning, I felt giddy and excited but not nervous at all.\u00a0 Shain was giving me his usual pre-race pep talks (they are the best)…I felt so ready.<\/p>\n