After the Finish

 

26.2 DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We are here to write our victory post!! Katie and I had a great race today and successfully completed ALL 26.2 miles in Philadelphia today--our first (and probably last) marathon. Our apologies to those of you who were hoping to ever run with us again :) We're retired. The race was fun yet challenging and we couldn't have made it without our family and friends who came out to the course to support us. Special Shout Outs to: The Kalbach Family, The Hartford Family, Aunt Faith, Uncle Bill, the Brown Panthers & Leah. YOU GUYS ROCK!! We also loved to hear from everyone who left us phone calls & text messages throughout the day. We were so encouraged to know that people all over the country were pulling for us!

Run Highs: Revisiting favorite haunts in Philly, returning to Penn's campus, cheering fans, accomplishing our goal AND THE FINISH.
Run Lows: Hills in Manayunk, cold weather (especially after optimistically throwing away our warm clothes at Mile 2, ooops), Miles 15-17 and blisters for both of us.

Post Run Food (our favorite section to blog about): Hot chicken broth in the finisher's tent, Philly soft pretzels, New Deck cheese fries & potato skins washed down with Woodchuck cider & Yuengling beer. Good stuff!

ON YOUR MARK, GET SET....GO!

Sarah and I are in Philly and are super excited about the race tomorrow. We will be having a pre race dinner tonight to celebrate Sarah's 29th Birthday! We picked up our race numbers, 2839 and 2840, and hopefully have finalized just about all the details. Now all we have to do is RUN. :) I am looking forward to seeing many of you along the way- thanks so much for all your support! We will be sure to post some race day pictures here after the run.

Track Our Progress As We Run the Marathon

You all can track our progress on Sunday. Sign up below and you can receive text messages, emails or pages about our progress while we run the marathon. Keep in mind the race starts at 7am EST.

http://www.doitsports.com/results/MSG-signup.tcl?sub_event_id=761

Race Countdown: 6 days to go...

Are we REALLY running this weekend??? I can't believe the marathon is finally here! Katie and I are very excited for this upcoming weekend in Philly, should be a great reunion w/ family and friends, plus 26.2 miles, oh right.....just that little thing....Seriously though, this training has been an amazing journey and we are thrilled to finally finish what we started way back in July. We are so thankful for all the encouragement and well-wishes that have supported us along the way. Looking forward to posting about our successful run in just a few days!!

Check out the race website for more info/course maps at:
http://www.philadelphiamarathon.com/exec/philly/home/home.asp

Blisters Begone!

I know I have been complaining a lot about blisters, so I wanted to share what my feet have been through over the last couple of weeks. Here are all the different pairs of shoes I have tried at some point during our training. In the front are my recent blister prevention products. Just FYI, gauze and hospital tape do NOT help, this was a bad idea on my part. Don't do it :)


My feet/blisters a week after our 20 mile run. Sorry for the graphic photo but marathon training isn't pretty people! I cannot wait to get a pedicure after the race. I am happy to report that my 3rd pair of shoes (Brooks Adrenaline women's 10 medium width) are becoming my new favorites. Katie and I ran 12 miles today and my feet were blister free which feels amazing! Ahhhhhhhh!


Run Highs: SUNNY, no rain, fall colors, rocking out to music and breaking the 10 minute mile barrier for the first time in our training!
Run Lows: The first six miles, getting run off the trail by bicyclists
Post Run Food: Gatorade, cheese and bananas at Katie's. No meatball sub but pretty darn good!

Feeling great after 20 miles

Katie and I at Seward Park in Seattle at the end of our 20 mile run. Like Katie said, overall this run was great and we were filled with a new sense of confidence that we can really do 26.2 in a few weeks! Almost there! AND congrats to the Red Sox, can't wait for the World Series!