As I said the other day, during my freshman year in college I decided I wanted to run a marathon. I think my family and friends thought I was crazy. That summer I ran all the time to be ready for fall 2004. I had picked out the Suntrust Richmond, Virginia marathon. I am not really sure why this one, but still to this day it remains my favorite race! The volunteers were wonderful and very friendly! The scenery changes very often, you will be running beside a river, then in the city, and then in a neighborhood. (I love having a lot of distractions.)
My mom and my baby sister accompanied me on my journey to VA. This being my first marathon, I did not know much about how big it was going to be! My only plans were to finish and to not walk. Other than that I had no plans. I had my favorite pair of running shorts, a cotton teeshirt, and a sweat shirt. My mom and sister dropped me off at the starting line in the freezing cold and told me they would find me after the race was done. I made my way up to the starting line, scared to death! (If you know me I really don't like crowds or a lot of people.) As I am anxiously waiting for the race to begin a girl comes up and stands beside me. She starts a conversations and come to find out this was not her first race. I asked her if I could run with her and she agreed. Her husband was up closer to the starting line because he was hoping on setting a PR. We heard the gun shot and we were off. To this day I do not know her name, but I ran the ENTIRE race with this girl. We talked about everything: family, christianity, love, running and anything else to keep our mind off of what we were doing. We crossed the finish line together at 4:03! Sadly, she saw her husband in a medic tent and ran off to be with him. I never saw here again. :( I started to look around for my mom and sister... they were no where to be found. I waited and waited and waited sometime about an hour later they come up to the finish line. I surprised them and myself how quickly I had finished! I was hooked! I could not get home soon enough to start training for my next race!
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