Marathon weekend has come and gone...and now we have a year to plan for the next. It is becoming somewhat of a yearly thing in our family, with the sea of participation growing. Three years ago...just Aunt Melanie ran the Half Marathon. Year Two...Melanie, Richard and I ran the Half. Year Three...Boppy walked the 5K; Grandma, Owen, Harper and I walked/ran the Kid's Marathon, and Richard ran the whole...entire...thing! That is right...all 26.2 miles of it! We started out the morning EARLY! Cole and I went down to the starting line with Richard, Boppy and Cole's dad. We got them all settled and headed to about the 2 mile mark on the course. We cheered Richard on there and then jumped in the car and headed to the Kid's Marathon. We were up towards the front of the several thousand kids that participated. We got to stretch and warm-up with Rumble, the Thunder mascot, and took off with a bang. Harper, her friend Gracen and I ran our little hearts out. The girls only walked for two little stints and we finished in the top 50 of the kids runners. Grandma and Owen were strong out of the chute, but Owen's little legs were just not in it. He walked a block and Grandma carried him a block. Both kids were glad to see our family cheering section on the side of the course and super excited to get a cheeseburger at the end of the race...a little before 9 am! Right after the kids race it started raining on us for a few minutes...Harper said, "We finished just in time!"
Next on the agenda...we loaded up and headed to a different part of the city to catch Richard at mile 18! We didn't have to wait long until we saw the sea of orange coming. We cheered loud, honked the horn and rang our cowbells! I think he really needed to see us at this point! We all jumped back in the car and headed to the finish line. This was the best part of the whole day! We spent the next 45 minutes watching all of the people come across the finish line. Truly an amazing sight! Gives me chills just thinking about it. And then we saw him...our daddy, husband, best friend come up over the hill on his final decent to the finish. We were so excited to see him and were yelling for all we were worth. Way to go Daddy!!! The first thing I asked him was..."Will you do it again?" And he said, "Yes!" Secretly that was the answer I was hoping for...because I'm going to do it next year! I know I typed this in a post earlier, but Richard and I trained for the marathon together this year. We ran for almost 5 months, 268 miles of training until my body said no more. My ankle needed recovery and the doc said NO! But the problem was, my mind said yes! It was really, really hard to sit on the sidelines and watch, but I am glad that I got to participate with Harper this year! Lots of tears shed, but I finally came to the realization that I didn't train for "nothing"...I got my kids and family excited about this amazing sport and this amazing event...to remember!
I saw this shirt pinned to the Memorial fence and I loved it! Find your reason to run!
2 comments:
The support you gave was amazing, secretly I'm already excited to run the marathon with you next year! Oh and thanks for getting me choked up while I'm reading this, you guys are my inspiration. I Love You!
You amaze me! This post made me cry. It has been wild to see you become so in love with running. And now to see you bringing your kids into it....just makes me happy all over! I am so very proud of you, even if you weren't able to run this year! I know you will be amazing next year.
Post a Comment