I DID IT!!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who supported me in this awesome experience by praying for me, donating money to TNT and encouraging me with notes and posts. I feel truly blessed to have been able to do this. The marathon was really tough, but I'm so excited to say that I finished it.
I started early at 5:30 with the walkers and walk/runners. We couldn't go faster than a 15 minute pace until about mile 5 or 6. This really helped me conserve energy for later on and, anyway, there were a couple tough hills in this leg so it was a good pace for me. I really felt like I hit my stride from mile 9 to about 18 or 19. I felt great, my pace on the running intervals was in the 11's and 12's, and the miles flew by. I passed my family at about mile 16 and that was awesome! I felt really good at that point and it really gave me a boost to see some familiar faces. I had put my name on the front of my TNT shirt so I had people yelling my name and encouaraging me the whole way, but it always means more when it's the people you love.
Around mile 19, we headed up the last big uphill toward Lake Merced. This is when my feet started feeling heavier. I started extending my running intervals by 2 minutes because I found that I was having a harder time starting back to running after my walking intervals, not to mention that my pace was slowing down, too. So imagine how awesome it was for me to see John and Anne somewhere during the 21st mile! That was so encouraging! I was thrilled, even though you can't tell from the look on my face in the pictures that John took at that point. Then, coming down the hill in the 24th mile, I saw my coach, Charlie, and he ran at least a half mile with me (after having run the half marathon himself!). We talked about the race and how everyone was doing and that really made that stretch fly by! He is awesome and I don't know if I would have had the courage to go for the full marathon after my injury if he hadn't of said that he thought I could do it. I am so thankful for him.
After he turned around to go meet up with other teammates, I had 8 stoplights between me and the finishline. That last mile and a half felt like an eternity! Once I saw the finishline, I started looking around for familiar faces. I got a surge of energy when I saw Deborah and then, on the other side of the course, everyone else! It was pretty emotional to finish it and I am so proud! It is so inspiring to see so many people out there running and so many of them running to raise money to help cure Leukemia, many of them with pictures of loved ones who have battled the disease on the backs of their running shirts. It was a great experience! I praise the Lord that He helped me do this. If I can do it, anyone can!