I'm still in awe of this whole thing. I can't quite get my head around the fact that I did it, and it's over. But, believe me, my body sure is understanding.
The race went very well, despite all the doomsday predictions about the weather. I held my pace the whole time, tough at times since the crowds and other runners really get that inner speed demon wanting to go faster. But, luckily my brain and common sense held out. I had no trouble whatsoever with my injured knee or my hip, thank goodness. The only real issues were my feet. I have a few nasty blisters, and the arch on my left foot cramped every now and then, but no biggie, just ran through it. At the end, my hamstring did cramp up, failing me, but I only had about 300 meters to go, and it came back. Last night I was walking around and today I'm even better, guess I did something right.
Mentally, I pretty much aced this thing, not once did I have a doubt about finishing, or question myself. That's not to say it was easy though, far from it. I just didn't have a mental mountain to climb, like I've had on some of my training runs. I did get emotional at the end, a sense of relief, joy, awe, and release. All in all, the whole thing was pretty cathartic. I'm not gonna say I'm a "changed man" or anything. But, this definitely affects my outlook on things a lot.
In one sense, the aftermath is one of the toughest parts, I think. I don't have to train anymore, I don't have that ultimate goal to shoot for, right now. I don't even have that as an identity trait anymore, "in training for the Boston Marathon." So the big question looming in the back of my mind is what now?
Well, I will keep running, though much scaled down and nothing for at least a week. I truly get so much out of it, and in the future I feel it will be invaluable to keeping a mental and emotional balance. I will also keep blogging, I really like this medium of expression. I will be making some changes to the site, obviously, but the url will stay the same with jyarwoodmarathon taking on more metaphorical tones. And, I have not announced this in a public forum yet. I will be attending Boston University School of Law in the fall, on scholarship(generous but not full, rats!). That will be a huge endeavor, in and of itself.
There's so much more to write, but I think I need to wait to digest everything. I'll get more in detail then. Till then, thanks again to everyone for everything. All I did was run a bit, you all really got me there!
