Marathon Monday ~ Running Loving Living

It's Marathon Monday!!!! And today we get to talk about the NYC Marathon and meet Toni! I am so excited to have Toni on today's blog, with her passion and love for running I found this marathon story to be exactly what I needed in the middle of yet another blizzard and blisteringly bitter temps.  I love that I am not the only one who has "secret" goals, that I am not the only one who is running her first marathon in "local" territory!!!!

A Marathon of Dreams from Toni:

Running a marathon has always been a goal of mine from the very first time I ran at age 19. I knew that someday I would run a marathon and my first would be NYC. Being a life long New Yorker I couldn’t imagine starting my marathon journey with any destination or than the New York City Marathon. I had tried for years to get in and finally was accepted in 2012 only to defer due to an injury. This worked out because that was the year of Sandy which led to the eventual cancellation of the event anyway. In the beginning of 2013 I developed the flu and pneumonia. During this illness I had to decide the fate of my deferral status and choose a year 2013, 2014 or 2015. Since I was so ill and couldn’t imagine running a marathon I decided to defer to 2014. No matter what I knew that 2014 would be my year to run NYC, finally! When I began training for this marathon I had never run longer than 14.2 miles so I knew I would have a lot of firsts during the training. I decided on a 4 month training plan and while there were some definite stumbles along the way I hit all the mileage goals I set out to do –14 miles, 16 miles, 18 miles and 20 miles. I had no goals except to finish and that was what I was doing, training to finish. I did have a “secret” goal to finish in under 5 hours. The weather predictions for marathon day were not great, cold and extremely windy. Predictions showed that for 21 miles of the marathon we would be fighting 20-30 mph headwinds, luckily for me my 20 miler eerily resembled these conditions. When I heard the predictions I quickly changed my mindset from my “secret” goal of running in under 5 hours to finishing without dying. Marathon morning arrived and the predictions of wind were not exaggerated, but it didn’t matter because I was finally going to accomplish my goal of running the NYC Marathon. My friend Crystal has been my running partner from the beginning and we always said we would do this marathon together and while we wouldn’t run it together, we would start it together! I will admit that I teared up when the race began. The emotions of actually running NYC were overwhelming, but they were quickly replaced by trying to run in a straight line while fighting the terrible winds on the Verrazano. That bridge kicked my butt. I even missed the first two mile markers because after I got off the bridge the next thing I knew I was turning into Brooklyn and seeing mile 3, I only wish the rest of the race felt that way! I savored every moment of this race. I stopped and took pictures, I talked to other runners, I interacted with the crowd. I never once even put on my headphones because I didn’t need them. The best thing I did was wear a shirt with my name on it because when I was feeling down the crowds lifted me back up by cheering me on by name. The halfway point of the race was a small bridge connecting Brooklyn to Queens, I stopped briefly to document it. We stayed in Queens for a couple of miles and then we headed to the Queensboro Bridge, which was the worst part of the race. It was almost 2 miles long and without the crowds all you heard was the breathing and footfalls of all the runners. It felt like we climbed that bridge forever. The best part of the bridge was when we started downhill. All the runner’s started cheering and I knew the bridge would be over soon. Coming off the bridge you could here the crowd’s cheering and it was amazing. I was told that the turn onto First Avenue was the most intimidating part of the race, but I just found it amazing! Four miles of runners on First Avenue. The sight brought tears to my eyes, plus at this point I was two-thirds of the way through the race! After First Avenue there was a brief visit to the Bronx and new territory for me because I had only ran 20 miles during training. The last 6.2 miles were rough, but I had some friends and family on route to support me just when I needed it the most at miles 22-24. After I left my family I knew the end was near and it was surreal. Crossing the finish line was one of the most amazing moments of my life. I had done it. I accomplished my goal of running the NYC Marathon and I had done it in 4:49:14!!!!!

I even got a tattoo to commemorate the achievement and what accomplishing this goal meant to me.

Aim high and live your dreams! You can follow all of my running adventures on my blog Running, Loving, Living.

Please go on over and follow Toni, she is so full of love, passion and inspiration.  

And speaking of running tats, do YOU have one? Want one? What would YOU get?