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| I love the energy at the beginning of a race. Everyone is pumped up, ready to go.....from the lean, mean, 3-hour marathoners (26.2 miles) to the half marathon (13.1 miles) walkers. About 12,000 runners. I love watching groups of classy, grown men dressed in bright knee-length compression socks and acting like kids as they high five and hoot and holler with their running buddies. And adorable little old ladies with their fanny packs dancing in place to the music. It's cold and dark. The music is blasting. We've miles and miles to go and there's sure to be some pain somewhere along the way. We all share the port-o-pots. We're all in this together. It's a great feeling. |
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| Got his game face on. |
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| It just occurred to me from the nose-enhancing perspective of this picture that our children should have perfect noses. Between his Roman ski-jump nose and my squashed-wide pug, it seems like the medium result should be nose perfection. |
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| This race had a great route through one of our favorit-est cities...and starting practically right under the ArtsGarden. |
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| Wasn't it nice of the Colts cheerleaders to come out in their sparkly sweatsuits and watch us as we passed the stadium? I kinda cracked up when they gave my 5-year-old son signed picture cards at the running expo the night before. I made him give them back. |
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| The first water station was right by the stadium. (See all the volunteers in their waterproof space suits as they hand out water? Cute.) We hadn't trained very hard for this race, and only got up to 10 mile long run in recent weeks, so we took it extremely slow (over 30 minutes slower than our last half marathon) and took walk breaks. We weren't after any PR this time - just getting out there and keeping our rears in gear. It's actually nice to not be pushing for a time goal, just keep moving and enjoy the scenery. |
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| Daylight finally breaks. There was this totally wonderful older man who showed up like 6 or 7 times along our 13-mile route and cheered us on. He was awesome. He had shortcut routes planned so he could beat us to his next spot and be there with his little bell when we ran by. He was obviously a runner and in good shape. We all wanted to hug him. It's amazing how much a good cheering section helps. You can actually feel a surge of physical energy when you hit a cheering section. It's amazing. Makes me want to cheer more for my kids and husband on a daily basis. |
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| Looks like we're gonna need those sunglasses after all!! |
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| As we cruised through Mass Ave, I couldn't help but remember the awesome cupcake we shared at this notorious bakery "The Flying Cupcake" on a downtown date night. I felt like a traitor or a hypocrite or something to even be thinking about a cupcake at a time like that. But it was a really, really good cupcake. |
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| At the finish! Right after we finished, this intense, mysterious pain came suddenly out of nowhere and attacked my right foot. I seriously could hardly walk. But I hobbled over and got some of the free chili served by Steak & Shake. Hit the spot. In case you're wondering, the space blankets really are helpful. As your body temp quickly cools down in your sweaty clothes it is easy to really start chilling. It's a miserable feeling. The space blanket holds your body heat in so that you can cool down without chilling. It was really a great race. It provided the inspiration we needed to keep on moving! Good times. |
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