Boston

I thought I would grace you all with 2 more pictures. Picture #1. Bill, me, & Christa outside of Regina's Pizza in the North End.
Bill and me at Mike's with the left over pizza and a little piece of heaven (the whoppie pie).

My last thoughts on Boston:
Running a marathon is like being Mormon, every where you go, you have an automatic best friend. It goes something like this: You're wearing running shoes, I'm wearing running shoes, we must be kindred spirits.

The Boston Marathon

It is time for my report. If you care, keep reading. If you don't, then stop here.
So we didn't take very many pictures....and non of Bill. How terrible. I said to him, "hey, we don't have any together pictures". He didn't seem to think it was a big deal. So time to call in a favor - Dearest Rob & Christa, can you send us a picture or two? Thanks.
Moving on, we had a great trip to Boston! We were able to hook up with our favorite people and eat........because that is what you do at social gatherings........and we played games. So we arrived in Boston, picked up my bib and perused the expo. If felt smaller this year, I think we can thank our tanking economy. Boo.

Here I am with my bib.

Next up....eating. I ate an entire whoopie pie from Mike's and I think it was the key to my success.

Skip forward to Monday, Boston marathon day. Here is Kara Goucher. She took 3rd, bummer. But she is awesome none the less.

Here is Ryan Hall, he also took 3rd, and is also awesome. Did you know that the purse for 3rd place is still $40,000. I wish someone would have told me, I would have kicked it up another gear.

Here I am, suffering at the finish line.
(Note to self, never post a picture of yourself next to an elite athlete)

And here I am finished and back at our friends. Oh hallelujah.

So do you want the details?
I didn't cry. I threw my hands up in the air like Lance Armstrong as I crossed the finish line because I finally broke a major time barrier (for me). I'm happy with the race. It was really hard, and despite all of my hill training, the down hill tore me up by the time I got to the Newton Hills, but I did it. At mile 24, I had a major argument with myself (brain vs legs) about how it really wouldn't be a big deal if I didn't hit my time, that it really wasn't that important anyway, and how I should just walk. But my brain won out and I charged, or hobbled to the finish line!

The temperature for the day wasn't too bad, there was a bit of wind and the temp was high 40's. But once we ran into Boston the wind kicked up. I crossed the finish line and wandered aimlessly towards food, water, blankets etc. But I was picked up along the way and taken to the medical tent. I was okay with it (and very coherent), because I could take a wheel chair instead of walking for another mile. Too bad I had to stay there for a while, my temperature was 93.1 degrees. Awesome. Who would have thought it was so cold out there. There were a lot of people in there with the same problem.
So I warmed up, and headed out to find my very supportive husband who stood outside for the whole race and was still waiting for me. All is well! And I'm finally done with Boston. I think I can leave it alone for a while.

And a special shout out to Jeff & Paige, Rob & Christa, and Eric & Camille! Thank you all so much for everything!!!

The End

Chicago Marathon

So it is marathon weekend. And what a lovely weekend to have the Chicago Marathon. I went down to support my dear Chelsea.

Just a picture of Chicago.

The water stations, they looked better prepared this year than they were last year.
The elite women. The winner of the Boston Marathon 2007 won this years Chicago Marathon - Lidiya Grigoryeva and the girl that took second also took second at Boston 2008 - Alvetina Biktimirova. I had to include a close up because the women are hard core.

The elite men.

This guy kicked his way through the marathon. He was actually pretty fast.
And of course, your Elvis impersonators, there were a couple this year even though it was pretty hot outside.
I parked myself at the 6k and 18k mark and missed Chelsea on the 6k. It's hard to find people with 45,000 runners. But behold, I did find her on the 18k, unfortunately, I had my big lens on and she ran right next to me and the camera wouldn't take a picture that close. But I screamed and cheered her on. So sorry no picture of the champion Chelsea.

Great job Chels on finishing another marathon!

Spirit of the Marathon

We saw the movie last night and it was awesome! Everyone in the theater were big time runners- all the small talk was about what marathons they've done, or are training for, how they are going back to Boston this spring in hopes of good weather, what their trainer is having them do, body fat analysis, the newest shoes on the market, what club they run with. It was great. There were even a few people wearing their marathon jackets etc. We all laughed at the same spots (when they said that the Chicago marathon is typically on the cool side- see Chicago 2007 meltdown). We all teared when an injury was inevitable and the runner had to withdraw from the race, we all clapped at the end (you couldn't help yourself) and we all stayed to see the behind the scene interview with Ryan Hall and Deena Kastor. (Ryan Hall won the men's Olympic trials last November at the NYC marathon). It was great. They even had interviews of marathoners such as Joan Benoit Samualson, Katherine Switzer, Jeff Galloway, Grete Waitz, John Kelly, Bill Rogers, Paula Radcliffe and more.

They also had some interesting facts such as:

-they didn't allow women to participate in long distance events because they thought their uterus would fall out.

-The marathon is 26.2 miles or 26 miles and 365 yards because when they were regulating the distance during the London marathon, the Royal family decided that they wanted to see the beginning of it, so they moved the starting line back 365 yards to Windsor Castle.

-they showed Deena Kastor cooking dinner and she mentioned that she doesn't calorie count but food analysis etc, show that she eats about 5,000 a day during marathon training and 3,000 a day when she isn't doing heavy duty training. (she is about my height- 5'4").

-The Boston marathon was started because some guys from Boston ran in the first Olympic marathon in the 1896 in Athens- from Marathon to Athens (this original distance was because the Persians invaded in the bay of marathon, but the Greeks were able to fight them off, so they sent a messenger to Athens (approximately 25 miles away) and when he got to Athens, he delivered the message "victory" over the Persians and fell over and died). So the Boston guys decided to have a marathon on Patriots day, the day when Paul Revere rode his horse to deliver the message that the Brits were invading, because it was symbolic of the original marathon.

-The Boston marathon's plan to limit the number of participants backfired when they set a time limit, it became more popular and more people signed up than ever.

So if you get a chance to see this documentary, and like running, jump on it. They agreed to show the documentary one more time because tickets were in such a high demand that they will be showing it in Feb.

*The only downside the to documentary was that they didn't' show how much pain everyone was in after they finished the marathon. If you want to portray to the American public what it is like to train for and run a marathon, you should include all the marathoners hobbling away and going down the stairs sideways.

*And last but not least, Lance Armstrong will be running Boston this spring!!!

And unfortunately so will Mike Huckabee- yuck, he isn't even legit.

I just got my tickets!!!!

Every time I find something that I want to go to, I wait too long to get my tickets (Rilo Kiley concert and the Magic Flute). But not this time, I got my tickets to this movie and I'm so excited. Call me lame, but this is going to be great!