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<\/center>[that’s a custom label he made with my “running puppy” logo (itself a Jonathan drawing from two decades ago)]<\/i> It made me cry then and it made me smile extra on Sunday night! And here’s the “I did it!” photo:<\/p>\n![](\"http:\/\/salticid.com\/for_wp\/hurray.jpg\")
<\/center>It was an evening of perfect happiness.<\/p>\nI had to take some ibuprofen to get through the night comfortably, and on Monday I definitely felt more sore than after my long training runs. But I went for a nice long hike in the woods to keep myself stretched out, and that was great. I feel almost back to normal today (Wednesday).<\/p>\n
I wore my medal to work Tuesday and Wednesday, but I’ll stop now. My co-worker Betty and her husband Bob (a surfer) gave me this great cheesy surfing trophy:<\/p>\n
![](\"http:\/\/salticid.com\/for_wp\/trophy.jpg\")
<\/center>It says “Steamtown Marathon\/Hilary\/’Placed Good'”!<\/p>\nThe photos are finally up today! They’re at runphotos.com<\/a>. There are 9 and most are OK, but the prices are so high that I’ll probably just get one or maybe two. It is great that there were so many photographers out there & so much to choose from, but I wish there was some kind of discount package…<\/p>\n Reflections<\/b><\/p>\n What went right?<\/p>\n What would I have done differently?<\/p>\n Was it worth it, all the time and energy and money? Absolutely. It was a peak experience, just like I wanted. I have to say that I don’t feel like it’s changed my life,<\/i> though. Maybe it’s partly because my race went so<\/b> perfectly that I didn’t ever “go to my very limits and beyond.” Jonathan thinks that’s a silly thing to regret, and it’s not exactly that I regret it; I just wonder, when I read about Mark<\/a>‘s heroic struggle, would I have be able to do that? And I tell myself, YES, I am a marathoner!…but it’s not quite the same as having experienced that dark place and come through it. “OK, so just run another one!” Although I have some marathon goals for the future–I’d like to run New York with my brother some day, if he ever seriously wants to, and if I ever got fast enough to have a shot at qualifying for Boston, I certainly would want to do that–I can’t see doing it again soon. Maybe before I turn 50. Just too time-consuming. But I will certainly keep running! It would be cool to be able to do an 8-12 mile long run every week, but it’s going to be hard to get any more than 2 miles in on a normal weekday. I’ll try, though. I want to run a 10K for the first time, and eventually beat 1 hour if I can. I’d love to break 28 minutes for a 5K. I’ll be into running more shorter races. And biking–I’ll do more biking.<\/p>\n I will get faster if I work at it. I didn’t do any speed training; I also could lose some more weight without becoming emaciated–not entirely sure it’s worth the effort, but it would help my speed. I didn’t take the time to seriously get into the ChiRunning principles, and I think that could help.<\/p>\n What’s next?<\/b><\/p>\n\n
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