Hi everyone :) It took me almost a full week to finally complete my final post! I wasn't truly able to process what happened last weekend due to my M2 block final for the hardest 5 academic 5 weeks I've ever experienced. Now that by the grace of God I was able to process it so... here we go!
Race results: My official time was a 1:41:19 - 981th out of 12105 total runners!! Here's the official race results:
This time has a story all to itself and although I was 1 min 19 seconds off of my time goal I set, I'm still very proud of this result for the following reasons:
1) My Nike+ Running app was COMPLETELY off during the race. Here's a picture of the distance it told me I ran at the finish line...
So... basically the app told me "13 miles" at mile marker 11... what - the - heck! Haha I wasn't really paying too much attention to the mile markers during the race so before I realized it, I thought I was "done" with the race when the app told me mile 13 and I had already begun to unconsciously increase my pace. Big mistake! See that decline in pace at near the end of the race? I think those final two miles at mile marker 11 were the hardest 2 miles I had ever run in my life mentally!! A very special shout out to my friend Emily for hopping onto the course and helping me cross the finish line :). I will be retiring my Nike+ Running App and I will be investing in a Garmin GPS watch to much more accurately track my training runs/races in the future. Post-race I felt great, however, so that ties in to one of my future goals that I will talk about later.
2) The half marathon shuttle service was really, REALLY bad. I got to the pick up site at 5:25am expecting to leave by 5:30am... They didn't have enough buses so we had to wait for the buses to loop back around to pick us up. After leaving at 6:10am for a 7:00am race start, they get us there at 6:45am giving me less than 15 minutes to check my gear, jog to the start line, and do a 5 minute cursory stretch for a half marathon. Another reason why I'm happy with my time since my body didn't break down! Thank God for hard training!
Overall... great first experience for my first long distance race ever :) Learned a lot and I'm aiming for faster times in the future! Some post race pictures!:
Shortly after crossing the finish line!
Happy stretching!! :D
Overcoming boundaries and dreaming big: Finally able to say that I am fully recovered and my ankle surgeries are far behind me!
BIG shout-out to Emily and Andrea for coming to support! Awesomest poster ever which is basically sitting up on my apartment wall now!!
My lovely family who flew out to support me on that day! (Actually more for vacation... but ya know!)
Thanks: HUGE thank yous to EVERYONE who donated over the course of these past 6 months!! I could NEVER have done it without you all so I'll take some time to post your name here so when I look back or feel discouraged all I have to do is look back at this blog post and remember how much love and support I have :)
Judy Alicante
Sean Alicante
Sharon Gates
Flor Hotchkiss
Nelson Castalone
Gener Dizon
Doris Woodruff
Carla Del Sol
CJ Alicante
Norma Santos
MaryAnn Leong
Jacob Arcelona
Lourdes Baltero
Jessery Lacerna
Jessie Lacerna
Bryan Takei
Fadwa Samara
Denise Veloria
Kristine Lee
Dustin Liebling
Milagrino Cachola
Munira Patel
Susan Irving
Gregory Enriquez
Jennifer Tuason
Grace Dadios
Danilo Dadios
Marianne Dadios
Yolanda Dadios
Concepcion Dizon
Jojo Quiatchon
Bhavnit Bhatia
Emily Thompson
Michael Beamer
Joseph Lee
Anuhya Gampa
Final fundraising results!
Thank you all from the bottom of my heart... I really never would have made it without you all :)
Future plans: Now that this chapter of my life has come to a close... I can finally turn my attention to the future and begin to dream new dreams!
1) My first and foremost priority now is to complete medical school :) It has gotten much more challenging but my experience with this race has given me a renewed passion and fire to press on no matter what situation I find myself in. I've fought hard and sacrificed a lot to get to where I am and I refuse to let it all go to waste!
2) I will continue to run! After experiencing the thrill of running a half marathon, I will set my sights to running a full marathon! I hope to run it before taking my board exams this April. To do that, however, I will keep up my training since it has basically become a part of my daily routine/schedule and it feels strange for me when I don't do it! My next race is the Chicago Hot Chocolate 15K so find me on Facebook to keep updated with that progress!
3) Finding God and trusting Him throughout my life. I feel that my personal relationship with God has grown tremendously through this entire experience. Days where I felt like I could not go on or make it, I felt a surge of energy that I can only really attribute to Him. Waking up at 5am every day to train/study before pulling a 12 hour day AFTER that with 3-4 hours of sleep was NOT easy for me. Looking back on it, I know I couldn't have done it without all of your support and without God. Team World Vision has taught me to widen my perspectives to remember that at every moment God is there to support me. I think the only word I can use at this point is simply... "awe"! :D
4) Maintain a positive attitude and smile throughout medical school and beyond even when things are tough! This is going to be a challenging goal but we hear every day about doctors and medical students who become jaded and uncaring. I will actively strive to maintain my core values and attitudes during my training and my career. I am definitely not perfect and I know I will feel negative and sad at times... but I plan to use this experience as a way for me to remember that I can get through ridiculously hard times while still staying genuinely happy :)
5) Re-exploring my limits and re-evaluating my goals and priorities. There are aspects of my life that I have sacrificed that I did not necessarily want to give up that I want to re-explore. I won't go into specifics but I will be actively thinking about and praying about those aspects. Personally... I hope that those bridges have not been broken down to the point where I can no longer cross them. Only time will tell! (Forgive me for being vague here... but let's just say that I've accomplished a personal goal by reaching my goals with this race)
This marks the end of one amazing and eye-opening journey of growth and commitment. I somehow managed to make it through 6 1/2 months of training while in medical school which gives me a lot of hope and confidence in the future! I plan to one day visit one of the wells I fund-raised for during this journey in Africa, likely when I finish my medical training (since they'll last for a generation!!). Again, thank you for following me and for all your support on this journey!! My updates will come primarily through facebook from now on (OR... if I decide to go on another crazy journey like a Triathlon... maybe I'll write another blog then? LOL).With that... I happily and humbly end this blog. God bless and take care everyone!
Bye bye! :D
Signing off,
Marc Dadios
Rush Medical College M2
Proud runner for Team World Vision :)
1 Corinthians 6:20 “Glorify God in your body”