<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"You guys, I did it&amp;amp;#8212;all 26.2 miles of the New York City Marathon are officially logged, and I have the aching quads and perma-smile to prove it! And because I&amp;amp;#8217;m a pretty slow runner, I had an exceptionally long time to think about how I managed to go from begrudgingly running 3 miles in a row, to throwing my fists up in the air as I crossed the finish line in New York&amp;amp;#8217;s Central Park. Here&amp;amp;#8217;s what I came up with&amp;amp;#133; Mile 17, and yet, smiling! Commit to the training, and have faith that the work will pay off. The hardest part of the marathon happens before you take your first step on race day. It&amp;amp;#8217;s not easy to force yourself out of bed on 100+ degree summer days, drizzly fall mornings, lazy Sundays&amp;amp;#133;you get the idea. But every run&amp;amp;#8212;good or bad&amp;amp;#8212;gives you something to draw on when you hit race day. Every wall you pushed through, every hill you scaled, will help your body (and your mind) remember that you can do it on marathon day. Don&amp;amp;#8217;t keep your goal a secret. I&amp;amp;#8217;m not saying you have to tell, say, blog about it Glamour.com, but tell your friends. They&amp;amp;#8217;ll support you through the training, and best of all, they&amp;amp;#8217;ll come out to the sidelines and cheer! My amazing friends, family and colleagues picked specific spots on the course and, using the New York City Marathon app, tracked when to come on out and meet me. On Saturday night, before I went to bed (though not to sleep&amp;amp;#133;I was so nervous I don&amp;amp;#8217;t think I slept more than an hour!), I wrote down all the corners I could expect to find friends and family and broke up the race into cheer sections. And man, did my friends deliver&amp;amp;#8212;homemade posters, balloons, mad clapping and yelling&amp;amp;#8212;I felt like I won an Oscar every 5 miles or so! Your friends are your fans; let them show you how much they want you to reach your goals. Pick a mantra. Or three. &amp;amp;#8220;It&amp;amp;#8217;s just left, right. That&amp;amp;#8217;s all it is.&amp;amp;#8221;&amp;amp;#8212;My friend Tim. Yes, I already knew that before he said it, but something about the simplicity of that statement really helped at around mile 21. In my head, I just kept saying &amp;amp;#8220;left, right, left right.&amp;amp;#8221; Just keep putting one foot in front of the other and you&amp;amp;#8217;ll get there. &amp;amp;#8220;The courage comes from doing.&amp;amp;#8221; People kept telling me I was &amp;amp;#8216;brave&amp;amp;#8217; for trying to do a marathon, but the only reason I (sort of) thought I could run one was because I had come close to it during training. You don&amp;amp;#8217;t get the nerve to do it one day and then run the marathon the next. The nerve comes from action. &amp;amp;#8220;Stick with it.&amp;amp;#8221;&amp;amp;#8212;Random dude in the Bronx. If I could wish one thing for all of you, it would be to know what it feels like to have total strangers cheer you on through the streets of New York with so much genuine support and love, it could make you cry. But about 5 miles before the end of the race, I entered a rather sparsely populated part of the course. There was one guy out there, clapping for me. &amp;amp;#8220;Stick with it, Annie,&amp;amp;#8221; he yelled as a staggered by. And I did. What do you think, readers? Would you ever run a marathon? HAVE you? And can we just take a minute and congratulate our own amazing Kim Fusaro, who also completed the marathon on Sunday (at a killer pace, I might add)! Read about it here. PS: Get more running tips! More Ways to Get Glamour: Chat with celebs, VIP fashion stars, beauty pros and more on our Facebook page! Visit Facebook.com/glamour for this month&amp;#x27;s schedule Download Glamour Magazine for your iPad--print subscribers, it&amp;#x27;s now part of your subscription plan! Enter the latest Glamour sweepstakes! Follow us on Twitter Photo: Jay Savage "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/health-fitness/blogs/vitamin-g/2011/11/think-you-cant-run-a-marathon>