So this happened.
And I'm ready for it.
And pop champagne I did. I don't ever drink during taper but I had just finished a 120 page thesis, thus completing my my Master's degree. Cross #8 off of what was my 25 Before 25 list.
2 bottles of champagne shared among 4 friends isn't going to kill me on Sunday.
Next up: Madrid Marathon. If you missed my post on Friday, you missed what tops the list as my favorite blog post ever.
I'm pumped for Madrid. I'm ready. I've got one day of work and a night of cleaning my apartment and packing ahead of me and before I know it, Wednesday night, I'll be off to Spain to tackle Marathon #4 - my first (of what I'm sure will be many) international marathon.
When I decided to run Philly (my first marathon), my mom gave me her usual mom advice by questioning whether I really wanted to try and run a marathon while being in school full-time and working. It was tough to balance at all but running and training kept me sane. I spent close to 40 hours a week studying during my first semester of grad school and running was the only break I ever gave myself.
The thought of running a spring break never occurred to me. I trained hard and got my first sub-2 half in New York but once that was over, I wouldn't have been able to bank the mileage for a spring marathon no matter how desperately I wanted to.
Training for Marine Corps came a little bit easier since I was only taking 3 classes and when it came time to start training for Madrid, my mom once again questioned if I was sure I'd be able to write my thesis while training for a marathon...wouldn't it be too much?
It was. Writing my thesis was one of the hardest things I've ever done. The only thing I can liken the effort to is training for a marathon. I spent 6 months writing my thesis...the product of 2 years of graduate research. The last few weeks have been so unbelievably difficult. I've been in the nonstop writing phase for almost 3 weeks now and last week, I just cracked. There's only so long you can desensitize yourself to the horrific things that are going on around the world when you're writing about them around the clock.
But I did it. I finished. I submitted my final draft to my adviser, who has been amazing throughout this entire process. Pending any edits and revisions I get from her next week, I will officially have finished my graduate degree.
Graduation is exactly 1 month from today. I have no idea what's in store for me beyond that but right now, it doesn't matter because while deciding to write my thesis and train for a marathon at the same time wasn't the best idea I've ever had, the fact is that I still did it and while my thesis may be over, I still have Madrid.
