St. Patrick's Day 2013 was one for the memory books. Ben, Steve, and Walter ran a marathon through downtown Atlanta! Here are the guys after some well deserved post-race pizza... smiles subsided once the delayed muscle soreness set in. :-)
To rewind a bit... every Saturday morning Ben, Steve, and Walter meet for a run. Last fall Walter started mentioning that he thought it might be cool to run a marathon. This planted the seed and the next thing I know Ben tells me, "Just to let you know I went ahead and registered for the Publix Marathon in March. Walter said he was thinking about it and I figured I might as well cross running a marathon off the bucket list." When one of these three decide to do something, it usually means all of them are doing it! I warned Kirsten and Denise that their husband's were going to be signing up soon, and we proceeded to hang out at home with a little baby (Laura), very pregnant belly and newborn (Kirsten), and a pup with an injured leg (Denise) on Saturday mornings while the guys ran for (literally) hours at a time to train for the race.
When it came time for the actual marathon we decided we would have some fun of our own! Steve and Kirsten live in the city and were just a block or two away from viewing points at mile seven and mile seventeen of the marathon course. They were gracious hosts and offered their townhouse as "home base" that day.
Ben, Max, and I picked up Walter, Denise, and Abby (their sweet pup) at 5:45am and we made the trek down to Atlanta. After some excited and nervous chatter (which involved making fun of each other, as usual) and sunscreen application the guys headed out. Steve's parents, Nilda and Conrad, and their dogs, Casey and Charlie, arrived a bit later. We enjoyed playing with the babies and dogs, ate breakfast together, watched coverage of the marathon prep on the news (over 16,000 runners - about 15,000 running the half or 5K and about 1,000 running the full marathon!), and laughed at the fun comments and pictures the guys were sending from their iPhones from the starting line.
As it got closer to the time we realized we were going to be able to see the guys run by we decided it would be fun to have a poster to hold up. Kirsten found some craft paper and markers and we had fun making a sign with a little inside joke for the guys (lots of the other runners liked it, too, and one runner even slowed down to take a picture of the sign!).
We packed the babies in to strollers, strapped leashes on the dogs, and headed out to our first viewing point at mile seven. Before we knew it we spotted Ben and Steve in the distance! We unrolled the sign and started snapping photos. They were looking strong and happy and seemed to enjoy our little poster.
Not long after, Walter came down the road and made a quick pit stop for some insulin (holla for diabetes!).
It was so much fun to cheer on our guys and the other people running the race (crazy side note... there were 16,000 people running the race and in the short period of time we were watching I saw two people I knew from college!). We strolled back to Steve and Kirsten's house for more coffee, breakfast-y snacks, and nursing and napping babies while we waited for the guys to get closer to mile seventeen where we'd be able to see them run by again.
Since we had a bit of time to wait while they ran another ten miles, we spent a little time in the grassy courtyard area by Steve and Kirsten's townhouse. We took pictures and Max felt grass for the first time.
It was all fun and games until Nilda reminded me that this little grassy patch is where all the pet owners in the neighborhood take their dogs to pee and poop! Ack! Mom of the Year here, I tell ya!
The cheering squad!
The guys made sure to let us know how the run was going by sending us text messages and photos from the race course.
We didn't want to show up empty handed at the next stop, so we got to work making more signs but had to color them in quickly as we realized we needed to hustle to make it to mile seventeen in time.
We hustled over to the mile seventeen viewing spot and started keeping an eye out for the guys.
Still looking good seventeen miles in!
Max and Saskia weren't terribly impressed. :-)
Since we had all the dogs and babies it was too complicated for us to get downtown to watch the guys cross the finish line, so we headed back to the townhouse to await their return. Before we knew it we were getting text messages with their final times and requests for post-race pizza!
The guys hobbled in after running 26.2 miles and we enjoyed some celebratory pizza and playtime with the babies and dogs. Before we left we had a great time watching Max and Saskia interact for the first time!
It was a fun day for everyone, and we all headed home feeling sleepy after our early morning wake-up... and from running really, really far. :-)
