He Did It!

Jared ran the St George marathon. And he didn't die. In fact, he did better that a whole lot of people who actually trained big time for the marathon. He ran 26.2 miles in 4 hours and 22 minutes and that's pretty darn good. I was a little worried about him since he didn't exactly follow a traditional marathon training regimen. He's been really busy with work lately and we've had lots of visitors so he hasn't had all that much time to train. For about a year now, he's run a three mile loop with some pretty rough terrain a couple times a week. He stepped that up with longer runs over the past month or so, getting up to about 10 miles a few times. And then it was time to run the marathon.

I knew he'd do it. I knew he'd finish that thing because Jared is one tough guy and he can make himself do just about anything physically. But I was just a touch concerned that he might mentally make himself go beyond what he physically could do. Luckily, I was wrong and his physical and mental body worked great together and he finished strong. I'm so proud of him! He ran a mile and walked a minute at each mile marker and said 'it worked out great - just like running lots of 1-mile races!" TWENTY SIX one mile races. That's a lot.

Jared's walking a little like Frankenstein and feels like he's lost all padding in his feet but in a few days, he'll be good as new. What a guy! I'm so impressed. And I think Jared was pleasantly surprised things went as well as they did.

While we watched for Jared at the 23 mile mark, the kids gave high fives to hundreds of runners and loved yelling out "Good job!" and "You're doing great!" at people who looked like they could really use a little encouragement at that point. I have to say it was pretty darn inspiring seeing so many people of all ages, shapes and sizes plugging away after 23 miles. Our favorite runners were a woman in a while outfit with a wedding veil on her head, a girl in a supergirl uniform, a guy who had to be in his 80's, and an amazing guy pushing a friend or brother in a wheelchair (serious tear-jerker there).
Jared quite suddenly showed up before we were really looking for him so we didn't get a photo - darn. The kids and I jumped in and ran with him for a while and it so much fun! We didn't make it that far before Oliver ran out of steam and it was time to hop in the car and try to beat Jared to the finish line. We didn't quite beat him - BAD traffic and parking - but we found him soon after he finished and it was so great to congratulate him and his brother Joel (who'd JUST missed his qualifying time of 3 hours 30 minutes for the Boston Marathon by 25 seconds - so so sad! But WOW - he ran that thing fast!).

It was so great to have Joel and his family with us for a few days before the marathon. Their 4 girls showered attention on our kids and the twins and Eliza were particularly enamored with them. We saw a Tuachan play, had a pretty cold but fun BBQ down at the pool and introduced them to our new favorite game - New World - a Carcassone game. They left Saturday and my parents showed up today. This is visitor season for us!