2 amazing races

Wow it's been a long time since I blogged! Where do I begin let's start of with the marathon. The marathon this year was amazing,the course was awesome the weather was great and everything seemed to go right my knee didn't hurt, I didn't feel dehydrated and it just felt like my day. Since it was my 7th marathon I didn't care so much to PR so I decided to help one of my teammates out (which was his first marathon) . He caught up to me at mile 3 and asked if he could run with me so I said of course I helped him all the way until mile 21 and than left him cause he need to use the bathroom. Along the way we picked up and left some of our team but at the end it was just me which was kind of disappointing cause I wanted to finish with someone but I was happy because I got a PR. I'll never forget how big of a smile I had on my face crossing the line that day and the smile my coach had was one to die for after the marathon I felt so lucky cause my legs weren't sore at all so I took a week off and got back to training for the Ragnar Relay.

The Ragnar relay was one of the best races you could ever run. 200 miles with a 12 man team was something I would never think about running this race tested us so much. The lack of sleep the sitting in the car for such a long time than running 3-8 miles,the night eating a lot and the running at night was a true challenge. Our school brought 3 teams to this race and our only goal was to finish. When we first got there we we're all pumped because it was finally time to dominate something new to us we listened to the rules and safety got our bibs and sent our first runner to the start line where the introduced every team that started in our time slot. After the started we all jumped in our cars and drove along the course cheering them on our first 3 kids stayed together through the first leg unfortunately we didn't know the runners course and the driving course were different so we stopped and sat on a wall waiting for them after a while we were wondering where they were and realized they didn't come that way so we all jumped in our cars again and rushed to the first exchange and there the runners were sitting waiting for us luckily we were smart and had our next runner ready and sitting on the outside seat so she jumped out and ran. During this leg our runner got lost because she didn't know where to turn so we had to go get her and make her turn around which set us back 2miles and 45min from our other 2 teams after she exchanged to the 3 person we were in catch mode we wanted to be back with our other 2 teams which we did catch up at the 6th exchange where we were neck and neck with our 3rd team until the 11th exchange. After we left the other team we decide to try and catch the other team so everyone on our team ran their hearts out when it came to my 2nd leg it was already midnight so i was super tired and really sick thank god my running coach was on a bike next to me the whole time pushing me through the rough hilly 10k I had to do after that I was done until 9 the next morning where my coach thought it would be best to switch me and someone else on my team since she had a shorter leg and i was too sick to run further. now this is when all the drama started to happen between my team and the faster team we wanted to catch by the 4th to last exchange we passed that team and they got super mad and thought we cheated to catch up by switching my leg witch wasn't the idea at all it was for my health so after that we were neck and neck until the finish we beat that team by 30sec which was amazing to us cause we were behind by 45min but we weren't so happy to finish because that team was so mad at us and thought we cheated so it ruined our experience but the fact we finished 200 miles beating adults was something amazing we finished in 29:28:50 I would do it again in a heartbeat and cant wait to train for the next years.

So this is my first blog and of course it's going to be about running! So here it goes I got into running my 8th grad year (2005) and everyone always asks me how I got into it so I tell them that my 7th grade health teacher was the running coach at our school he does a program SRLA and he would always talk about it in class so I decided to give it a try I had no idea what I was getting myself into besides the fact I was going to be running a long distance so I went out for my first day of practice and fell in love with the sport because you didn't have to be the best at it. My first race was the OC half marathon it was pouring rain,our bus broke down,we started the race 30minutes late and I had to sit in this shack type thing for a hour freezing when I finished as I was sitting there I was thinking to myself if I could run through that I can stick with this sure enough I did and completed my first Marathon in 7hours 40minutes I couldn't explain the feeling I got crossing that finish line even if the time was slow just knowing I accomplished something amazing was all I needed, from that day on I told myself I will never quit running and come back next year trying even harder which I did my 2nd marathon I knocked a hour and 35 minutes of my time which was amazing in my eyes and every year since than I always wanted to do better but never did breaking 6hours has been the hardest thing for me but it never brought me down and makes me push myself even harder every season.

Now that the LA marathon is 9days away I've never felt so nervous and ready for a marathon I'm nervous because I've been fighting a knee injury since the middle of December which totally made me think I wasn't going to do this marathon but I wasn't gonna let it stop me so I took a break and sure enough it's a lot better now but from this injury it made me realize how lucky I am to be able to run let alone walk and it made me push myself so much more at practice it made me want to run faster and faster which i have been thankful my knee is letting me do it so now going into this race I'm so much more confident in myself and I'm ready to break this 6hour curse I seem to have on me :)

So good luck to all you first time marathoners it's something you will never forget and fall in love with