Live, Run, Grow

I absolutely LOVE Washington D.C. and was so excited to head back down for the Marine Corps Marathon this year – on top of it Jason was coming!  He hadn’t been able to make the trip for my previous Marine Corps Marathon or when I did the Cherry Blossom 10 Mile Run so I was excited to get to share the race weekend with him.

Before we get to DC, I should back up and give a quick overview of the 2 weeks between the Hartford Marathon and Marine Corps…

Thanks to an ice bath, lots of walking and foam rolling and literally LIVING in my compression pants, my recovery after the Hartford Marathon was great!  My legs felt good in just a few days and while I was nervous about the mysterious and new knee pain that popped up the last few miles of Hartford I was diligent about icing every night and stretching.

Unfortunately though, when we were at my moms house for the weekend for the Hartford Marathon my sister wasn’t feeling great…by Tuesday after the race Jason was a sneezing, coughing mess and by the following Friday, despite my best efforts, this plague had caught up to me.

I didn’t leave the house basically from the time I got home from work Friday until I went to class Tuesday morning.  I survived on medicine, tea and soup and slept on and off all weekend.  I was nervous enough doing 2 marathons 2 weeks apart, the last thing I needed was to be sick on top of it!

Fortunately, by the time we headed to the airport Thursday night I was feeling better…not great…but better.

Jason and I got into DC late Thursday night and Friday morning we headed for a tour of Arlington National Cemetery.

Arlington National Cemetery

Our tour guide was fantastic!  If you’re ever in DC (or any of the cities they offer tours), I can’t recommend Free Tours By Foot enough, every tour I’ve done with them has been excellent!

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Arlington National Cemetery

After our tour we grabbed a quick lunch at a place the tour guide recommended and then headed to the expo.

Bib and shirt pick up was super easy and organized and we were through that part in no time.  Unfortunately, the line for the official merchandise was CRAZY long (1.5-2 hours!), so I decided to not even bother looking at anything and just headed into the rest of the expo.

I stopped by my charity team booth and got some information on meeting up with them in the morning.  One of the nice perks of running with this charity team was that we had a tent that we could hangout in pre-race, we could leave our bags there (instead of the regular bag check) and then walk right over to the start – this was a major perk given that the morning forecast was calling for rain!

Friday night we met Christine (my MCM running buddy!), her husband Adam and a few of their friends for dinner and then we headed back to the hotel for an early night.

I had planned to get up and go to the shakeout run with Bart Yasso on Saturday morning, but I hadn’t slept well, so Jason and I decided the extra rest was more important.

When we finally got up we had a late breakfast, went to the Holocaust Museum for a few hours and then had an early dinner in Georgetown.

We were back in the room by 8pm to relax and get race ready…

…almost time to run with the Marines!