Home Sweet Home

I've been waiting to post for two reasons.  I've been talking to so many people like I am some kind of celebrity......accepting food and flowers....so sweet of everyone.  And, I wanted to post some pictures to show how amazing the whole trip was.  Such a tragic event near the end, but still, one of the most amazing experiences in my life!  I feel like I was a little under-trained for this marathon.  It was physically and mentally so hard.  At mile 23, I wanted to give up.  The course seemed incredibly hilly and I was just beat.  The spectators truly keep you going.  I still get chills thinking about how awesome the spirit of the people in that city is.  I dressed up with a seashell bra and a hula skirt and people cheered me on and yelled things like "go seashells!" and "keep it going little mermaid!"  I got a lot of whistles and just tons of encouragement.  The whole 26 miles was nothing but happy people high-fiving, clapping and offering food and drink...... the whole time!  When I saw my husband Brady at mile 25 (he'd been there for 5 hours!! thanks for your support love & for keeping me going), I cried and hugged him.  It was so hard to finish that last dang mile; and my pace was an awful 12 minutes!  The race was SOOOO hard but incredibly fun. My finishing time was 4hrs, 5 minutes (an average of 9:17 min/mile) and I was sitting about 200 feet from the finish line when I heard the 2 explosions.  I didn't see anything and no one really knew what the heck those canon sounds were.  We didn't even know what had happened until about 20 minutes later when we asked a stranger for directions.  He offered his home for a shower and food if we needed it.  We finally got to our car, which was so stinkin' hard cuz I was hobbling so bad.  Then we had to fight all the chaos to get to the airport to catch our flight.  So many people were congratulating the runners and expressing how proud they were.  Of course, everyone at the airport was glued to the TV with tears in their eyes.  I will never forget this whole crazy thing. I keep praying for and thinking of all the victims and their families.  I feel so lucky to be a part of the ultimate marathon experience and so blessed and happy to be home safely with so many loved ones that worried about us.  I'll post pictures soon.  Thanks for reading:)