...and one more article!

Hello all! A little more than three weeks to go until the Boston Marathon - I can't believe how quickly the time has passed. Here's another one of my articles from The Harbus - hope you enjoy it!

Going the Distance

A Rookie's Journey to Run the Boston Marathon

Kelly Carson (OA), Contributing Writer

Erica Guo, Tanya Soluk, Kelly Carson and Abigail Wattley at the Red Party.

This is the third in a series of articles following EC Kelly Carson's quest to run her first marathon through the Dana Farber Marathon Challenge.

The past few weeks have passed by in a blur - run, study, class, eat, hang out with friends, sleep, repeat… and suddenly, there are only six weeks left until the Boston Marathon. While I'm excited, I can't help thinking - how did this happen?! Am I really going to be able to ramp up to 26.2 miles in a month and a half? Here are a few of the things that have filled my past few weeks:

The Red Party
February 11 was a great night for Dana Farber, as HBS students gathered at Redline and raised more than $1,300 for cancer research.  A huge thank you to all of you that made it out and contributed to this great event - your generosity helped push me nearly halfway to my fundraising goal.  The Red Party's success is also due to the generosity of the many sponsors who donated prizes, including Redline, Dunkin' Donuts, John Harvard's, J. August, Qdoba and Starbucks. 

Running in Philly
Oh, the joys of training while traveling. While in Philly visiting my boyfriend, I managed to squeeze in my longest run ever along the Schuykill River.  To me, there's no better way of seeing a city up close and personal than by running it.  As I run, I like to pause and take pictures of the city from my perspective - like this one about two miles outside of Philly from the river trail.  While I have yet to run "Rocky" style up the steps of Philly's art museum, it's definitely on my agenda… Oh, and the fact that my boyfriend ate lunch in public with my sweaty, gimpy, weirdly attired self after my 14-mile run?  Definitely makes him a keeper.

Hyannis Half Marathon
As February came to a close, I traveled with many of my fellow Dana Farber Marathon Challenge fundraisers to Cape Cod to run the Hyannis Half Marathon.  This beautiful race along the coast was my fourth ever half marathon.  Since I left my iPod at home, I had plenty of time to catch up on my thoughts.  If you've ever wondered what long distance runners think about during their races, I can promise you it is utterly unimpressive:

Wow, it's really beautiful out here… Man, I'm so hungry.  How much longer until the next water stop?  It would be so sweet if they had pizza there.  Even if I finish all 13.1 miles today, I have to do this twice over on Marathon Monday.  Yikes - that's kind of a scary thought.  Man, I really like pizza.  I can't believe that white-haired old man just passed me.  Okay, only 7 more miles to go… Do I seriously have to go home and read cases after this?  I bet it would be a lot easier to read those cases if I had some pizza…  Mmm, pizza…

Somewhere in the middle of the craziness of this race, I realized something - I may not be fast, or all that fit, or know anything about foam rollers or fartleks (yes, that's a real running term) - but today, as my legs propel me forward without my having to force them into it, I am a runner.  In the end this was a great race for me - I cut my personal record time by nearly 15 minutes (I like to credit this to all the Trader Joe's kettle corn I ate in the car on the way out) and got to see fellow ECs Emma Doggett and Stephanie Parker as they finished their first ever half marathons.  Congrats, ladies!

Days until Boston: 42 (Yikes!)
Most miles run (as of March 6): 16      
Funds raised: $3,394.82

Visit www.runDFMC.org/2010/kellyc to find out more and to donate.