From DC with Love: 37th Annual Marine Corps Marathon.

Sometime when I was at BYU, I decided that in the future, I wanted to run a marathon. Since it goes through DC/Arlington and I love Marines, especially my Grandpa, it was a no brainer to run the Marine Corps Marathon. I decided to wait until I moved back to DC and could train at the same altitude as the race. A month after I moved back my Grandpa Morgan moved up to Woodbridge to be closer to mom and dad, and we became very close. I have loving memories of my Grandpa from when I was a little girl: he called me "baby" because I was the youngest (and still does sometimes), he was the one who set up the VCR for me so I could watch "101 Dalmatians", he was the one who taught me the importance of doing genealogy, he knew how to fix anything, and he would always cook grits and bacon for breakfast when we would visit. But my Grandma was a very chatty person, so when we were all together, he would never have a lot of chances to talk. The past year and a half I have talked more with my Grandpa than the past 21 years combined. We've looked at pictures and documents from when he was in the Marines and he has told me so many awesome stories that I can't wait to tell my children some day.

I decided last summer that it was the perfect time to run the Marine Corps Marathon, and this past February, registered along with 30,000+ people. I have been so excited, because my Grandpa would be able to be there in person, and see me run this race in his honor.

Along with a troublesome knee, the week before my race I had a bad infection that almost led to bronchitis, and Hurricane Sandy was coming straight for the East Coast (we are all okay at my house) expected to make landfall the day of the race. Great.

Luckily, everything worked out-the race went on as scheduled with no storm yet, and my disease was gone.

Saturday afternoon I headed to the expo at the DC Armory to pick up my bib and mock shirt.

Sunday morning Britt put this sweet sign on my door before she left for Iowa :) hashtag sweetroommate.

G had to take his parents to Reagan at 5:30, so he came over after and came with me to the start line on 110 by the Pentagon...after stopping at Dunkin Donuts for coffee and driving around Crystal City looking for a parking place. Here I am after taking his coat, because I was cold. It was real early.

I wrote this on my wrist for some inspiration whenever things got hard.

Here is the shirt I made to wear. Special thanks to my mom, who really is the one who did all the work.

Slow flyover by Marine Ospreys during the opening ceremony.

As you can tell, I was pretty excited.

And we're off!

G was there cheering for me at Georgetown (mile 9), the Mall kind of by Lincoln (mile 16), and on the 14th street bridge (mile 20). Every time I would get to where he was, he would run a little bit with me LOL. This is in Georgetown on M Street.

There were definitely times where I struggled...mile 20-26 my back started hurting so bad I wanted to cry. I really thought I would die before I could make it to the finish line at the Marine Corps War Memorial in Rosslyn. When I got to the finish, I ran up the last little hill and I saw my parents and G waving at me, but I only really noticed my Grandpa, sitting in his wheelchair covered in a blanket. I ran up to him and started crying, half because I really wanted to die, and half because I just love him. After we got our medals, I met everyone and we took some pics.