This weekend was the Cleveland Marathon! The race weekend includes several events, including a half marathon, full marathon, 5k and 10k.  As an ambassador, I spent the weekend working the Expo, and running! It was great to be back to an in-person race (my first one since 2020!) but there were several things different this year. Including:

• I only ran one day — Saturday. This is the first year that the 5K and 10K were on Saturday and the half and full on Sunday — typically the 10K is the same day as the half and full, but they split them up this year, meaning I was only able to participate on Saturday. 
• No challenge series for me! Because of that, this was also the first year I was unable to run the challenge series! The series includes running an event Saturday AND Sunday, and even when I was 9+ months pregnant with LM, I did the 5K (Sat) and 10K (Sun).
• No half marathon and less-than-stellar training for me.  Since I’ve only been cleared to run for about 6 weeks, I was unfortunately not able to get back into the best shape and unable to run the half. Still, I signed up for the 10K, with the goal of running it without stopping and hopefully doing it all under 11 minute/miles (a modest goal for me) – one my fastest 10K time was in the low 50-minute range. 
• New course. Typically, the 10K starts off with the marathon and half marathoners, but since it was a different day, it had a new course, running with the 5K race.
• New season. Cleveland Marathon weekend is always in May, which means the weather is either SUPER hot, rainy, or freezing (it snowed one year that I ran it!). I didn’t mind having a fall race, though the weather could’ve easily been May.
• Not feeling my best. I’ll admit that I wasn’t feeling my best on race day. Since I have a just-turned-3-month-old baby, I’m getting poor sleep (fun fact – my 3-YEAR-old woke me up at 11 pm and 1:30 a.m. the night before the race — that doesn’t account for my 3-month-old). Breastfeeding has made me semi-dehydrated. I’m not at my pre-pregnancy weight yet, so everything still feels a little awkward when running. And, I had fallen a week before race day when running and ever since then, my groin muscle has been off. And, I knew we had to rush from the race to another event for my son’s school, so I was anxious about that. 

With all that, my goals were:

• Have fun. Remember that I GET TO RUN and am so grateful and lucky to be able to, especially 3-months postpartum!
• Run without stopping. Try to run the whole thing in the 10 minute/mile range (my fastest training runs were close to 11 minute/mile pace)
• Help out. As an ambassador, I was planning on volunteering at the EXPO and working the information booth. This meant I could answer questions and meet people who were running.

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