My last post left off at the finish line, but I’ve always wondered about after a marathon, so I thought I’d share with you my experience.

As soon as I had grabbed my bagel, banana, etc., I immediately picked up the phone to call my mom and find her. I needed a hug and badly. I also, very literally, needed someone to lean on. I think we were both a little delirious from the heat, because we had a hard time finding each other. I had told her I was walking towards the family meet-up area, but then I sat down and forgot to tell her that. Eventually, we met up by the flower truck, where she had a bouquet of sunflowers waiting for me (when I was little, my favorite song for her to sing to me was “You Are My Sunshine”) and a balloon.

I remember her telling me we could get a cab if we crossed Michigan Ave. We stood out there for about two minutes, and I realized everyone else had the same idea. I remember thinking, even if it hurt, I’d rather start walking back to the hotel than stand there waiting for a cab with thousands of other people. We got probably about 60% of the way back to the hotel when I finally found a cab. At this point, my mom was walking around in socks because her feet hurt so badly from putting on new sneakers that morning and wandering Chicago in search of her marathoning daughter.

We got back to the hotel, and I hung out a bit with Bobbi, Meghann and Kelly. And stretched:

We walked next door to get burgers at 312:

I got two more Goose Island 312s here, and they were much better than the ones I had at the finish line.

m

We went back to the hotel room, and I took a looooong nap. I woke up around 8 absolutely ravenous but still too tired to go out to eat, so we ordered deep dish pizza from Lou Malnati’s to the room:

I woke up yesterday with a terrible cold (I’d been sick a few weeks ago and I think my body’s been fighting this off since then and surrendered after I made it run a marathon) and decided that a boat tour would be the perfect way to see a little more of Chicago without having to walk. We walked over to the Corner Bakery for breakfast, and I had eggs, toast and fruit.

And we went on the boat tour. 

Our adorable tour guide.

Marina City, otherwise known as the corn-on-the-cob building. Every single apartment has some kind of amazing view, and they are all pie-shaped, which must make them really hard to furnish.

Skyline.

Lighthouse.

Apparently at one point, the Coast Guard turned this lighthouse over to a private civilian to take care of, and he started throwing wild parties there, so the Coast Guard took it back.

Me and my mom 🙂

The airport and flight back yesterday, in one word, sucked. I was feeling really sick at this point and incredibly tired. I usually take a little something to relax on flights, but feeling so sick, I didn’t want to fall asleep in the cab on the way back and have the cab driver have to wake me up. There was a massive storm in NYC last night, which I made it back before, but there must have been storminess in the air, because there was definite OMG-I’m-going-to-die turbulence at one point. I made it back, got some Pump, wrote that epic marathon recap post and went to sleep.

Back to my regular routine…

But now, I’m a marathoner 🙂

Eighteen months ago, I could barely run a mile. 

One year ago, I was preparing for the Army Ten-Miler. It was the first race of a considerable distance that I would run the whole thing. (It was the second time I’d run it; it was the second race I ran the whole thing.)

Six months ago, I had two half-marathons under my belt.

Tomorrow I will run my first marathon! I’m definitely nervous, but the day’s festivities helped.

We started off with some blogger breakfast at Jamba Juice:

I went for a smoothie with some banana and oatmeal on top. (Their granola had peanuts, which I’m allergic to.)

L-R: Leslie (who’s also running NYC, because she’s hardcore like that), Bobbi, Meghann, Kelly, Brie and me!

We went to the Sears Willis Tower.

Apparently, the tower is the height of 313 Oprahs. Unfortunately, this is the closest I’ll likely ever get to the big O. 

It was really high.

Like, so high that we were above the skyscrapers.

We went to Giordano’s for lunch, but this lactard stuck to a chicken sandwich while the other girls had deep-dish pizza.

And then another blogger meetup over some fro-yo:

I went for key lime. Wise choice on my part, as it was amazing.

Then we saw this creepy lady.

And the bean.

And ended the day with the final carbolicious meal: some bow tie pasta with chicken, spinach and sun-dried tomatoes at the Pasta Bowl. My mom came to meet us! I’m proud of her—she never travels without my dad, and she flew here all by herself and came all by herself to meet us at the restaurant.

No matter what happens tomorrow, I’m really proud of how far I’ve come. For the most part, I’m not too nervous. My awesome roomies are all multiple marathoners (between the three of them, they’ve run 13 marathons and qualified for Boston), so that’s helped my nerves a ton. They haven’t let me doubt myself for a second, and I’m so grateful that Meghann asked me to stay with them when we ran together at HLS. Staying with other fun, blogging, motivational marathoners has done an amazing job of keeping my nerves at bay.

All the e-mails, texts, calls, Facebook messages, tweets and blog comments are putting a huge smile on my face, and I’m so thankful for all your support.

Unless something catastrophic happens tomorrow…

THIS NEXT POST WILL BE FROM A MARATHONER.

GOOD NIGHT!!!