A Running Year in Review; or, Yay Me.

We recently passed the one-year anniversary of my first marathon-training run - it was on Halloween, 2009.

I have run 4 marathons since that day, within about 9 months.

I have run over 383 miles since then. That's not a big number for a runner, but I'm not a runner; I'm a girl who decided to do a couple few several marathons. Four of those miles occurred after my last marathon, but I still don't really intend to do much more running. It's on to biking for me - much better for the knees!

An extremely important fact I'd like you to know: over the course of this whole temporary insanity, I have not lost even one toenail. None have turned black, ever. I hear constantly about this phenomenon and I just skipped it entirely, thank you.

I ran two of these marathons for friendship and two for charities. For the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society I raised over $5000. For the Blue Card Fund (for needy Holocaust survivors) I raised another $2500. If you helped make that happen, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

The NYC marathon was a really hard one for me physically. I was tired, jetlagged, sick, and not well-trained. It was still a glorious day and it meant the world to me that my family came out to support me (did you see that amazing video???? I am so obsessed with it) and that a dear friend flew into town just to be there for me. I am so grateful and I will never forget it.

I posted my marathon playlist after the LA marathon and I won't repeat it, but I did add a few songs for this one, for example:
Go Go Erica Yaa Yeah / Goldma Family 1:25
(the audio from that video!!)

In honor of running NY:
The Only Living Boy In New York / Simon & Garfunkel 4:02
New York State Of Mind / Billy Joel 6:03
New York Mining Disaster / The Bee Gees 2:09
An Englishman In New York / Sting 4:27
New York City / They Might Be Giants 3:02
The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy) / Simon & Garfunkel 1:43
I kind of threw them into the mix wherever, without calculation, but don't you know THE 59TH STREET BRIDGE SONG CAME ON WHILE I WAS RUNNING ACROSS THE 59TH STREET BRIDGE!! Oh yes.

(Empire State of Mind (Jay-Z and Alicia Keys) was already on there)

And, in honor of having come straight from a yoga and mediation tour of India, a few mantras and related songs:
Mahamrityunjaya Mantra 4:28
Lokah Samasta 1:07
Om Tryambakam with Swami Vishnu-devananda 1:14
Loka Samastha Sukhino Bhavantu 1:08
Gobinda Gobinda Hari Hari / Snatam Kaur Khalsa 10:47

And that's the end of my marathon career! Right?