First Marathons: Brittany S.

I had been running since 2012 and decided at some point that I wanted to run a full marathon but never knew quiet when to do it. I knew I had to be mentally ready first.

I had seen in early 2015 that the date for registration would be opening soon and decided that it would be the year I would run. I figured it would be the perfect opportunity to celebrate my 26th birthday that year! Why not run 26 miles, plus .1 for luck and another .1 for the heck of it. I had let a friend of mine know about this and she decided she would do it with me but also reminded me it was going to be a lot of work.

Registration open in April 2015 and it was announced on the Philadelphia Marathon's social media page that the first 100 registrants would receive best discount. I think I only paid $80 at the time when the early registration for everyone else was $100. Once I registered, it felt real.

Fast forward to training and it sure wasn't easy. My friend and I were each other's accountability partner and we needed each other. Waking up at 3:30am and being out the door by 4am was rough. I hate waking up before the sun rises and some of those mornings were cold. I also learned that training for a full marathon was very different from training for halves. We also got to train with other friends of ours who signed up. One of the best parts of training was we'd all have friends who saw us running in the neighbrhood and either text us or post on social media that they saw us and were cheering us on!

When race day arrived, I was ready. I think I had ran 22 miles the week before so this was a huge deal and it was my birthday weekend! My real birthday was 2 days earlier. It was rough because I got into a fallout with 2 friends leading up to the race and I had to brush it off on race day because I had to. It wasn't too cold and the wind was calm. I love the course that Philadelphia has and the crowds were the best part! Once I got to mile 19-20, I began to hit a wall and I was beginning to doubt myself. I didn't dare walk but I ran at my slowest pace. I was able to pick my pace back up after I saw a fitness group I am part of at mile 21's cheer station. They saw my shirt representing them and their encourgment helped me so much!

I continued runnning and telling myself "I can do this. I made it this far and I can keep going!" Mile 22 was done, mile 23 "okay 3.2 more miles to go!" By mile 25, it felt like forever to go but I was so close! Once I saw the finish line and crossed it, I had the biggest smile on my face! I saw my friend and as soon as we hugged, I cried out of happiness.