Santa Barbara International Marathon

Last month Aaron and I ran our first marathon...26.2 miles!  It was such a great experience to train together over the last several months and to accomplish this amazing goal that we set together.  I have never considered myself a runner until about a year ago when I started to get into it.  I found that I really enjoyed the satisfaction of beating my own distances and times (not to mention I finally found a sport in which Aaron and I were on equal playing fields!)  We trained for and ran a half marathon in May and decided that if we were ever going to go "all the way" and run a full marathon, this would be the time in our lives for it (we're only getting older, right?!) 

So, for months our neighbor from across the street would come over at 5:45 a.m. four days a week to babysit our sleeping kids while Aaron and I would go running together.  It is amazing what the human body is capable of with determination, dedication and consistency.  I am still pretty surprised that in just over a years time I went from thinking I couldn't run 3 miles, to completing a 26.2 mile race.  The best part was that I got to do this with my husband...we were like a little running team: encouraging one another, challenging each other, and secretly trying to outdo the other! There is no way I would have had the discipline to follow through with the training schedule if not for him.

I'm not sure if I will ever run a full marathon again.  I haven't decided if I want to go through all of that again, but I am so glad that I had this opportunity.  Whenever I feel like I need a confidence boost, I can put on my SBI marathon t-shirt and tell myself, "If I can run a marathon, I can do anything!"