Marine Corp Marathon weekend is hands down one of my favorite weekends to be in D.C. The energy surrounding the race is amazing and there's no place I'd rather be the last Sunday in October than cheering on friends.

Megan drove down to my house so we could hop on the metro bright and early to get to my all time favorite cheering spot.

After scoping out a lot of different cheering locations last year, I felt like a spectating pro this year and picked out a great spot where we could easily see our friends running and they could easily see us.

We set up camp early. When we got there a few wheel chair races were passing through and not long after them the lead male runners went flying by.





Slowly but surely the packs of runners passing us were getting bigger and bigger.



We were keeping our eyes peeled for lots of blog friends (we saw Heather, Leslie and Kandi) and I was on the look out for a ton of friends from high school, work and college.

Our sign made us extra easy to spot and it was a definite crowd pleaser.


Zach did all the hard work making this.

(For the non-D.C. folks, Metro is our public transportation system, and it is pretty terrible. It breaks a lot, there is constant maintenance that slows things down, and it's horribly expensive for the level of service you get. But it is a necessary evil if you want to get around the city. I'm grateful it exists so I don't have to drive, but I absolutely hate how unreliable it is.)

Tons of people (both spectators and runners) stopped us to ask if they could take a picture of us with the sign. Runners were cracking up and laughing to their friends and shouting to us that it was so true. I was really happy Megan and I were able to provide a bit of entertainment and comic relief in the middle of the marathon.



If it weren't for the sign, I wouldn't have spotted my friend Marisa, my high school teacher or my coworker.

After we saw Zach, his sister Jess and her fiance Ryan and my other friend Peter run past, Megan and I were ready to pack it in and head home. Megan had to run 22 miles, but as we were walking back to the Metro, I wanted to stop at mile 20 to wait for everyone to pass through again. Megan headed back home to knock out her run and I watched and cheered some more.

After Zach and Peter ran past again I told them I'd meet them at the finish, and I high-tailed it to the Metro to beat them there.

It is a long, long walk from the Metro to the finish line, but I scrambled through the crowds and made it into the grand stand with plenty of time to spare. I was scanning the runners looking for familiar faces and after not too long I saw Zach, Jess and Ryan heading up the hill. It was Jess and Ryan's first marathon and all three of them were smiling and looking awesome. The race finishes on an uphill (kind of cruel if you ask me), but they were moving at a good pace and looking great.


Me, Zach and the world's most popular race sign

I hung out for a while at the finish line looking for Peter. He hadn't been too far behind Zach's crew for most of the race, but after waiting for a while, I was afraid I'd missed him. I wandered back to the finish area, hoping I'd somehow magically be able to find everyone (this is a very poor plan), but luckily I spotted Zach's younger sister and the rest of his family and we headed over to baggage claim to meet up with all the runners.


Me and Peter after his very first marathon!

Huge congratulations to everyone who ran MCM yesterday! I hope you all had as much fun running as I did spectating.

(If you saw me on the course with my ridiculous sign, please leave a comment! So many people stopped and said hi or asked about the sign and I barely got three seconds to say hi as you were running by!)


*Lots of these pictures came from Megan's camera because it's nicer than mine!