Here I am! I did survive my first marathon on December 2, 2012! I am officially a marathoner! Yay! For those who have been wondering, I am sorry I left you hanging for so, so long. December brought some unexpected distractions and I feel like I'm just realizing its January, even though we're over half way through it. Yikes. Nonetheless, here I am 1-1/2 months later and 26.2 miles further into the amazing journey that is my life. As I left off , I grew increasingly nervous as I got closer to the California International Marathon ( CIM ). Not only had my training not gone as plan due to injury (aka IT Band issues ), but the weather became a huge factor. In past years, the CIM would generally fall on a cool, crisp day, but no such luck for me. It was stormy, wet weather with 30-50 mph winds. I must have checked the weather forecast hundreds of times in the days leading up to it, hoping to see a calmer forecast (and I swear when I went to bed the night before, the forecast was cal...