Mike's marathon

Mike ran the marathon on Sunday. I'm really proud of him. He finished in 6 hours and 11 minutes. The race clock starts at 8 when the race starts, but he didn't cross the start line until a little while after that. He had a smart chip tag on his shoe to track his time. I think it was a learning experience for us both. Mike learned that he really should have trained more. His conditioning was fine, he was never really out of breath too much. However, around mile 18 his legs started to cramp up really bad and he had to walk/run the rest of the way in a lot of pain. Before that happened he was on pace to finish in 5 hours. With the cramping though he finished just a little over 6 hours so he still finished his goal - to finish before they pulled up the finish line. =) Mike also learned what he's going to be like when he's 90 years old and can barely move. He's been pretty sore the last few days. I was glad that we both took Monday off from work. It gave him time to recuperate some.

On the other hand, I learned that I was completely unprepared to cheer my husband properly. My mom came down to meet me and we drove to 6 different spots along the race to cheer him. I brought our camera and I also had cliff bars and poweraid chews and the like to give him along the route. I did all the prep work the days ahead to make sure that I knew what time we needed to leave and what to bring and where to go, filled out his race bib, stayed with him until the race started and all that. I thought I was being very supportive. However, I didn't have the professionally printed shirts saying Run Mike Run. I didn't even have a homemade one. I also didn't bring a poster or banner and I didn't have the blowup sticks that you bang together to make noise or the cowbells. So now I'm trying to convince Mike to run another marathon so that I can properly cheer him on. At the moment I'm not having much luck (something about his legs feelings like they've been beat a thousand times with a baseball bat).

I also didn't think about bringing Apollo with us for the day. We left him cooped up at home and our neighbor came to play with him for a little while about midway through the day. I saw a lot of people with their dogs though and I think I would bring Apollo if we did this again. He would enjoy it, although I don't think he'll understand why he can't run with Mike.

Finally I learned that I was much more nervous, anxious, and worked up over this race than Mike was. I was about ready to cry by the time he crossed the finish line for some reason. I realized while Mom and I were waiting about mile 22 that Mike and I do almost everything together. If he's playing on a sports rec league or I'm doing something we go support each other. And for flag football or basketball I can watch him run up and down the field and see him the whole time. With the marathon though I couldn't see him the whole time and it was really hard on me for him to go through something so difficult, painful, and momentous without me being able to be there for the whole thing.

Other things we learned:

- To be grateful for sore legs that hurt. We saw two people, including a 7 year old boy, without legs who ran the race with prosthesis

- To be grateful for safe finishes. An experienced runner died towards the end of the race on Sunday.

- That before we have kids we need to get a real video camera rather than just using the recording function off my camera

- That it's really cool to have F-18s do a fly-by the kick start the marathon.

- That when people say that finishing is winning a marathon, regardless of place, it's really true. In the case of 26.2 miles, just finishing really is winning.

Marathon prep

So when your husband comes home one day and says he wants to run a marathon in a few months because he's not getting any younger, don't quickly say ok without a thought. I've learned that him running a marathon actually has implication for my life. For the past three months he's been gone for hours on Saturday morning doing his long runs. Now honestly this isn't that big a deal except that I'm home cleaning house and looking at the yard work that he's supposed to get done but doesn't. This only got to be a serious issue recently as the runs were long enough that he got home, sat on the couch, didn't feel like getting up for the rest of the day and would ask me to bring him his dinner, water, etc so that he wouldn't have to move. As a result the rose bushes we purchased on sale in September are still in their pots waiting for their flower bed to be tilled and mulched.
This week I've been cooking special dinners with lots of pasta, printing maps of the marathon to find places that mom and I can go wave at him as he runs by, taking next Monday off work so that I can stay home and help take care of him, and thinking about how early I have to get up on Sunday so that I can go wait in the cold for the hours it take him to run the race.
Now I realize that all of this may sound very selfish since I'm not the one who's been doing the running and not the one who will be pain come Sunday afternoon. The truth is though that it's not selfish, because as irksome as it has been sometimes and as much as I don't like getting up early I'm actually happy that I get to do all this and be supportive of Mike. I'm proud of him for running this marathon. He's wanted to do it for quite a while now. Instead this is more a cautionary tale for you to know that when your husband comes home and says he wants to run a marathon that it will somewhat inconvenience your life and for you to remember you promised to be a loving, supportive wife so give him a kiss and say ok anyway.