A Weekend in DC

Last weekend Tom and I flew up to DC for the Marine Corps Marathon - me as runner and he as cheerleader. It was a whirlwind trip, but we had a great time.

Of course the rally was also taking place the same weekend, so the crowds on the metro and the Mall were crazy.

After picking up my race packet at the expo (and all the associated freebies), we headed on our merry way to the Mall.

We did the requisite tour of the most important sites.....

Visited the Air and Space Museum (yawn..... sorry Tom)

Saturday night, we had some delicious pizza....

...with friends.

Sunday morning, we got up before the sun to get to the start line on time.

Tom caught up with me around mile 17 and ran with me for a bit

He even captured a little video of the moment

{Can I please remind everyone that this is at mile 17? Please excuse my lack witty on-camera remarks.}

Here we are at the finish....

In all, it was a great weekend. I couldn't have done it without all of the support of my friends and family, and especially thank Tom for waiting on me hand and foot the whole weekend. While training for a marathon alone is doable, you definitely want to have the support of someone on race weekend. It makes the whole thing so much easier.

I finished at 4:58 (30 minutes slower than I ran it two years ago), which was ok with me considering my lack of adequate preparation and also considering my hip injury. I've also already crossed it off my Day Zero list (yay for crossing things off from lists!!). So that I don't entirely lose the motivation to run, I'm considering running the Atlanta Half Marathon on Thanksgiving Day. We'll see! My sister Laura is running the Oakland Half Marathon on March 27th (go Laura!!), so maybe I'll have to find the cash to take a trip out to NorCal in the spring!

Do you run? Bike? Swim? Have a favorite event? I'd love to hear good recommendations for runs if you've got them, or tips on staying inspired to train.