4:40am - My alarm clock goes off. My eyes slowly open... It's dark outside and quiet in the hotel but I'm awake and excited! Today is the day.
5:20am - Missy and I leave the hotel room to walk towards the shuttle. Its freezing outside! 41 degrees to be exact. We are bundled up with sweat pants and shirts over our race attire, we join about a hundred people in line for the free shuttle. I was going to take pictures during the waiting but I looked down and saw my phone had already dropped from 100% to 85% battery in the 10 minutes since we left the hotel. NOT a good sign since I was planning on taking my phone with me on the 5 hour marathon journey. So I put it away and held off on the picture taking.
6:00am - the shuttle drops us off at Runner's Village. We are greeted by cheerful marines checking bags and wishing everyone a good morning. We pee (the first of many port-a-potty stops that morning), figure out where everything is and then find a tent where people were huddled because a.) it was still dark and too early to go the starting line and b.) it was freezing, so we runners banded together and huddled in the event tents to share body heat and pre-race jitters.
7:00am - while we were in the tent sipping on water and getting our race gear all set, the Marine Corps chaplain came on the mic and announced they were going to have a small worship service. I wasn't expecting this at all, so I was super happy about it. My friend Missy is not a christian and really wasn't interested in this worship service but she agreed to stay in there. I was so excited to hear the Word that morning and have a time of prayer. (My temporary tattoo I had on my wrist.)



7:15am - we head down to the starting line. We are stripped down to our race gear except for the cheap gloves and jackets that we planned to toss once we got warmed up. (The MCM team donates all discarded clothes to the local shelters.)
7:40am - The opening ceremony began. This included the National Anthem while Marines jumped out of planes and then drifted to the ground with gigantic American flags. I got a smidge bit choked up being surrounded by current and past military members standing there in the early dawn chill while our countries anthem was sung over the loud speaker.

Its here, its here, its here, its finally here!!!!!

The Marine Corps Marathon is tomorrow.

Currently I'm laying on the hotel bed getting ready to go sleep. I've showered, stretched, prayed, and laid out my clothes and gear for the morning.

We (my friend/coworker/partner in crazy racing adventures Missy) drove up to DC yesterday morning because we registered for a Runner's Symposium course associated with the Marathon that we can use for continuing education courses for work. We went to that yesterday afternoon and this morning, and when we weren't in the course or getting lost trying to drive ourselves around DC we were hanging out at the expo. I don't know about you, but I love race Expo's! You're surrounded my hundreds of people all hoping to accomplish the same thing, all motivated to do their best and even some competing to be THE best. I always spend way too much money at Expo's because the race gear is always super expensive, but I allow myself 1-2 things as a souvenir from each race that I do. This race was a T shirt and hoodie. I love them!

I'm so excited that Mark drove up this evening just to be there for me at the finish line tomorrow. Isn't he the sweetest? The poor guy has sat for countless hours at finish lines over the 5 years we've been together. I keep trying to tell me he'd have more fun if he'd run the race with me, but he says he's good with just watching and waiting. : )

Anyways, its 9:45 and I am ready to sleep because we will be trying to catch the shuttle to the starting line at 5:30 tomorrow morning!

The Marathon Taper is in full swing here. After the surgery of course I pretty much rested from ALL intense physical activity (read as: anything more than walking or jogging only to catch up with a puppy, family member, what have you...)

 I had my follow up with the doctor last week and she gave me the go ahead to start running again! It's been a weird tapering experience for a couple of reasons:

1.) I've never really tapered leading up to a race before. I've always heard that I should but I just never felt confident in myself to stop training. It's never really been a problem for me before - but its possible I could've done better in previous races if I had let my body rest.

2.) I was sort of forced to taper thanks to my surgery. And usually taper doesn't mean take 2 weeks off and do absolutely nothing. So I took 2 weeks off and then had this week to get in 1 last semi long run, and some good quality shorter runs before more of a rest next week, with only very short easy runs, leading up to the Marathon. So my training has kind of looked like - TRAIN really HARD -> rest completely -> Taper? -> Run Marathon! Normally the taper should come before the "rest completely".

 I did run 12 miles yesterday (the semi-long run) and it felt good. I was nervous I would be deconditioned after the 2 week rest and barely be able to get through but, it wasn't bad. It took me a while to get into a good breathing rhythm and muscles were tight during and sore afterwards but I'm okay with that. I finished easy, feeling very encouraged that I can complete this 26.2 mile race in 10 days! Not only am I excited about reaching all of my training goals, I have met and actually exceeded my fundraising goal for 24:50 Inc. Little Sikelele will have education, after school care and health care for another year! I am so grateful to the friends and family members that made this possible. It will definitely be the motivator for me during the race when my body is rebelling against those last few miles.

Hello Friends!

This is probably going to be one of the most honest blog posts I've ever written, well maybe not honest, but I guess the most "real life" post. It's also one of the longer ones. You may or may not be interested, but I feel like documenting this past weeks experiences anyways. So here it goes.

This whole surgery thing took a lot more out of me than I thought.

I took Monday off of work for the day of the surgery and Tuesday off as a "get better" day and thought I'd be back on my feet by Wednesday for sure. As I got closer to the surgery, I was reading a few horror stories online from women who had the same procedure I was having done and so reluctantly I took Wednesday off as a precaution. A "just in case" day with the thought that if I was feeling good on Tuesday I could always go in to work on Wednesday anyways. I seriously doubted I was going to need 3 whole days to recover from this outpatient procedure.

I'm just going to admit it here - I was wrong.

Monday morning came bright and early and Mark took me to the hospital at 6am. I had been nervous about the surgery ever since we decided to go ahead and have it. You see, I had a very large endometrioma on my left ovary. They found it shortly before Mark and I got married but I was hesitant to have it taken out because there was a chance I would lose my ovary along with it. It wasn't really causing me pain, much to the Dr.'s surprise, and they weren't worried about cancer, so I figured there was no harm in leaving it alone because I really didn't want to lose an ovary at my age. Because well, it seemed like a big deal, losing an ovary in prime child bearing age. Unfortunately it did start causing me problems this last year and we found out there were risks involved with getting pregnant having that large of a cyst sitting there. Anyways, after a lot of praying we decided it was best to go ahead and get it taken out. I felt sure about the decision but still nervous about the surgery just because I've always had an intense fear of being put under anesthesia! My whole life I've considered that to be the scariest thing ever! I just didn't (and still don't) like the thought of being that out of touch/out of control. It's one of the only things that literally made me freak out if I thought about it. Needless to say, I had to do alot of praying. And Monday morning as we checked in at the hospital, I was as calm as could be. My blood pressure was normal, which surprised me, because it always jumps up when I'm nervous at the Dr's office. But you know what? I shouldn't have been surprised. I had been praying for peace and assurance and God is ever faithful, isn't He? I don't know why I get surprised when He reveals His presence. We also did a lot of praying that my ovary would be able to be saved, but also that if it couldn't, we would be at peace with what ever had to happen.

After the surgery, while I was still coming out of anesthesia (which wasn't as scary as I thought it would be) Mark told me they did in fact have to take my ovary. Mark said I cried when he told me - I'm not 100% clear on that memory thanks to the drugs I was on, but I do remember being in pain.

And this pain continued. Monday, Tuesday and into Wednesday I was hurting. I was only comfortable laying on my back. Any movement requiring my abdominals to work just about put me to tears. And also, in an unexpected turn of events, the government shut down this week which meant Mark was furloughed. Are we happy about this? Nope. But was I glad he was home to take care of me when we hadn't planned for him to be? Absolutely. I would've been in trouble with out him. I did finally return to work on Thursday an Friday but it was hard. I struggled for sure. I couldn't believe how naive I had been about this procedure. But I made it through.

The pain is lessening during the day now and I was finally able to sleep on my side last night! Woohoo!  But now I am just feeling frustrated. I am ready to feel better and be 100%. Tomorrow I was supposed to run/walk a 1/2 marathon with a good friend, its her first 1/2! So I am super disappointed that I won't be able to do it with her. I went shopping with my mom and sisters tonight and had to take severalrest breaks thanks to pain. Once again, I over estimated my ability to recover from having a small organ removed from my body.

This experience has been humbling; the 3 little scars on my abdomen serving as a reminder that I can in fact be knocked down, despite my mental resolve to stay on my feet. And that maybe I should listen to my Dr.'s and family members when they tell me that planning to run/walk a half marathon only 6 days after a surgery is a bad idea. haha

So what next?

I have a follow up with my Dr this Tuesday to go over pathology results, (just to make sure the cyst was in fact benign like they think it is) talk about recovery and also discuss fertility. I still have one good ovary though, so from what she told me in pre-surgery appointments we shouldn't have an issue trying to start a family. Which is something we are thankful for.

I'm praying next week finds my body healing faster than it did this week, but if not, I pray that I have patience with my body. I am eager to get back into my housework routine, workout routine and just feeling 100% again!

I spent the day Saturday cleaning the house because I knew I would be out of commission for a few days after my surgery (which happened yesterday) and I'm not very good at relaxing if my house feels messy.

I did the usual cleaning, you know the vacuuming, dusting, laundry, sweeping, mopping, bathroom cleaning, etc. but as I was doing all of that I started seeing other things that needed attention that I had been neglecting for the past few months. And of course once I saw it, I couldn't ignore it! For example...