on halloween this year, mark and i were fortunate enough to complete the marine corps marathon in dc. we trained for about 6 weeks, which as you may know, is horribly inadequate. needless to say, we were both pretty nervous. this was mark's first marathon and my second. i trained for about 7 months for my first marathon, so 6 weeks was a joke and i knew it. up until about 1 week prior to the race i was wondering whether or not i was going to go through with it. BUT i knew that last year when i saw everyone on the metro with their race bags i was really sad that i didn't share in their mixed emotions of excitement, nervousness and general comradery. so, we ran. and as it turns out, we ran well. mark finished with an awesome time of 4:33 and i finished in 4:54, which happens to be 9 minutes faster than my marathon race time in 2008.

here are a few shots of us before the race. mark stretching and us freezing a bit before the sun came up:


i don't have any shots of us after the race since my camera was a in a bag and the bag was in a truck that was too far away for my jello-like legs to handle without a long rest. by the time we got my bag and took off my shoes, all i wanted was for the medics to fix up my toes (some unsavory things are still going on there, but i won't bore you with the details) and get home to rest!