Wow, Jason thanks! I'm so happy that I was able to do something to help you today. I was feeling all kinds of things like, " I have been holding you back this whole time, " and stuff like that. I had a whole blog written in my head about things I could write about and how your left me in your dust (which i know had to happen because i was crawling at that point)

Anyways, the run for me was in 3 stages. The first was miles 0-4 or so. I felt shitty. My legs hurt (shins and left quad muscle), I was feeling bad for myself, I was thinking of all the people in my life and how they are all seemingly better off now that they are as far away from me as possible, and now my husband/running partner was included in that now that he was probably about a mile ahead of me so he didn't need me to be with him while running. sigh.

Then I stopped and got some gatorade and continued the trek on towards the 9 mile marker and I started to stop feeling sorry for myself and just thought about how to get through the run alone. My legs had worked most of the kinks out so that wasn't bothering me anymore. So I saw Jason coming back towards me about a 1/4 mile before the turn around point (I just put my head down and didn't look at him) I stopped for gatorade about 1/2 mile later.

The last part of the run was really pretty difficult, although I was able to get through it. I had to stop for some water at Oak St. Beach but that was the last time I would stop until the end at the totem pole. One really fun thing happend while I was running. I was going over the North Avenue Bridge and one of the running groups was coming up the other side. One of the girls in the group started shouting:

"WHEN I SAY CHICAGO YOU SAY MARATHON!!!!!!"

and everyon started clapping and cheering and I just this surge of energy and I got this huge chill and realized that there was going to be an end and a purpose to all this training. I thought that if that was what the marathong would be like people cheering all over the place I knew i would be able to finish. So who ever that group was you ROCK (i think it was the AIDS marathon people...although i'm not 100% sure)

So that was it. Next week we have a 20 miler whoooo whooooo whooo!!!!