Maybe the marathon was the friends we made along the way.

When I was packing my large suitcase for this semester I had a difficult time deciding whether or not to bring my running sneakers or not. On one hand I was away from my rowing team and needed to be able to exercise somehow, on the other, if I didn’t put them to use then it would have been a waste of precious suitcase volume. I decided I would take my chance and bring them, praying I wouldn’t regret my choice. During the first week after arriving I was greeted with the opportunity to run a full marathon for charity in April. Without a doubt I decided I would run it and started training that day. The training started, honestly pretty rough. The cold and short days of January, combined with my class schedule forced me to run after the sun had set everyday. I’m sure you all can imagine that it wasn’t really the most fun. I ran as much as I could, not following any real training plan, mostly just going off tips I learned from my father who has ran a few Ironmans in years past (ironman races are very cool, look them up if you’re not familiar). Thankfully I had a running partner who was also going to run the marathon, Ryan C. We ran fairly consistently through the rest of January, in February and March the study trips slightly hindered our schedule but we did all we could. Before we realized March turned to April and there was less than a week until the race. I never really sat down with myself and tried to process just how difficult, both mentally and physically, this race would be. Starting the race I felt fantastic and pushed myself to keep a pace that would have resulted in an incredible time.  Just over halfway through I discovered I was in fact mortal. I was no god of running. I had limits. That is when I hit them. The rest of the race just sucked honestly, I was hurting real bad and I really just wanted to finish the race. And I did!

I would love to say I had some incredible life changing experience while running this race, but I feel like what I learned most was that coca-cola is fantastic to drink while running and massage guns are a gift from god. 

p.s. I did not win the marathon, however, I did beat the other Ryan. #betterryan #ryannumber1 #ryanCisslow

Much Love, 

Ryan D.