Adam and Angie are Officially Marathoners!

Well, we did it! Last Sunday Adam and I ran 26.2 miles--in 5 hours and 15 minutes--to complete our first marathon. The marathon went pretty well overall. After a night of nerves and little sleep, we were at the starting line bright and early for our 7am start.

The run began in Union Square downtown San Francisco. We ran down to the Embarcadero and past the tourist attractions of Pier 39 and Fisherman’s Wharf. Our first and largest hill was between mile 6 and 7, past the Golden Gate Bridge, where we ran by Fort Mason and up to the Cliff House. Luckily we train in this area, so we were ready for the giant hill (we actually ran up it too fast), but we felt bad for the teams from Oklahoma! We then ran through the residential Presidio District and down toward the ocean before entering Golden Gate Park where the half marathoners split off. After the park, we ran along the Great Highway until we got to the zoo, then we did a 4 mile loop around Lake Merced where we passed San Francisco State University. The loop took us back to the Great Highway for the last 3.2 miles to the finish line.

Apart from crossing the finish line, the best part was when we received our finisher’s metal--a silver pendant of a runner—in a blue Tiffany’s box from men in tuxedoes.

We were able to meet our donation commitment thanks to the help of so many of you. Our team raised over $235,000 this season alone, and the 4,200 Team in Training (TNT) participants from all over the country who ran the Nike Marathon raised over $14 million! The night before our marathon, the president of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS) spoke to all the participants and said that LLS would be making an announcement soon regarding the steps their researchers have made towards restoring immune systems quicker for recovering chemotherapy patients. Clearly we are all making a difference in the fight against cancer. To find out more about this research, copy and paste the following link into your web browser:
LLS Report

We wanted to take this last chance to thank you all for your support. It has been much appreciated. Thanks also go to all of you who came and cheered us on – it meant a lot to us. And just in case some of you thought we would get bored after running a marathon, never fear, next weekend we are on to our next challenge: skydiving!

Cheers!