SOUTH FORSYTH — As could be expected, Carrie Meersman returned from her first Boston Marathon more excited than when she left.

The south Forsyth mother of six ran the marathon for a charity called The Ace Bailey Children’s Foundation, an organization that funds the soft-side of hospital stays for children in The Floating Hospital for Children at Tufts Medical Center in Boston.

Even with an Achilles injury she suffered while training, she finished the race in four hours and 59 minutes.

“I miss so much about the experience already,” she said.

The atmosphere was one of the most memorable parts, Meersman said. The spectators who lined the streets, the runners who wrote their names on the back of their arms so fans would cheer for them, the signs that marked each town she ran through. Her husband waiting for her at the end.

The gear she was able to bring home.

“Everyone there has a story,” she said. “Everyone there is for a reason, from the people who won it to the people running it for charities.”