Inspiration

Yesterday I came to the conclusion that out of all the Monday holidays throughout the year, Patriot's Day is by FAR my favorite. Drew and I began the day early with a 10 mile training run for our upcoming half marathon in Providence, RI (only 3 weeks away!) We ran a new route that brought us across the Mass Ave. bridge, along the Charles River, and back to JP through the Emerald Necklace.

After our run we spent the rest of the day watching the Boston Marathon at Mile 23 in Brookline. It was one of the more inspiring races that I've watched and reallllly made me want to run a marathon (which is odd considering it was 90 degrees and everyone looked like they wanted to pass out).

Highlights from the day:

1. Receiving free pizza, Sam Adams shirts, hats, and bottle openers! 

2. Having a confused runner come up to me and shout "Julie!? Julie? Is that you?" to which I replied "No I am not Julie, pretty close though." Apparently I looked quite similar to someone he went to high school with.  I think he may have been a little dehydrated and disoriented.

3. Making new friends who love running and also blogging!

4. Running into 2 of my best friends from middle school who I hadn't seen since well...middle school. 

5. Seeing so many marathons who were still smiling after 23 miles of grueling conditions (and many who were not smiling).

After some much needed naps Drew and I began discussing our chances of ever qualifying for the Boston marathon (very low at this point), and how after today we were both really itching to sign up for one. She has run the Burlington City Marathon (Burlington, VT) before however I have never ran a full one (only a handful of halves). After checking out a few races in the late fall online we found that the Philadelphia Marathon was not sold out yet and fell at the perfect time considering we are running a half in mid-October. 

After a couple minutes of asking myself if I could be in good enough shape come November to run a full marathon I decided that YES! I could. And suddenly I was signed up! I'm very excited/nervous to finally be running a full marathon!! The reviews of the race say it is a great race (it's a very flat/fast course) and except for one out and back section seems like a perfect course. Let the training begin!

Women's winner @ Mile 23