Where have you been for the last 25 days?! One word: Recovering

Evidently this blogging thing isn't so easy, huh? Well, the last 3 weeks have included a lot of things. I will attempt to provide a concise update.

On February 11th, I departed for New Orleans with the DetermiNation team. We brought a nice little group to NOLA for the Mardi Gras Marathon (and half-marathon). It was my second marathon for the American Cancer Society, second marathon ever, and my first destination race. Due to the winter training, I didn’t feel quite as prepared as I did for the Chicago. I didn’t expect to come close to my previous marathon time of 3:59. I was going with a group, this was a race for fun, and two of my best friends, Jen and Sarah, were also coming to New Orleans.

It was also my first time in New Orleans. And I mean, how often was I going to be in New Orleans? I decided to have just one Hurricane. It was good. So was the Lemonade Rum concoction. And the Hand Grenade. I think we can see where this is going. Long story short, I broke my typical race protocol of no booze the week before the marathon. On Saturday, it took until 8PM to feel like a human again.

I went to the expo with Veronica and one of my best friend’s Jen, both of whom were running for the ACS. This is when I started to get excited about the race. That night, we went to the DetermiNation dinner, which is always amazingly inspiring. My quote about my dad and grandpa was up on the screen, we listened to the calls for action from top fund-raisers, Sarah arrived. It was great.

The next day, I had another amazing race. Although not quite as fast as my first (I finished around 4:18 or 4:19), it was great. I saw Sarah along the course, ran the first 5 miles with my future co-captain of the Chicago race, Matt, and ran the last 5 with a young man who had been diagnosed with leukemia as a child who had never heard of DetermiNation. Keri Miller ran her first half! Sarah Sfezi, another ACS athlete, ran a 3:09. Veronica PR’d. It was a good day.

The race had me even more pumped about Boston and about the Chicago marathon. And especially about the DetermiNation program. Of course, when I returned, I would get thrown a little loop from the Boston Athletic Association.

More to come…