Seventeen Miles

Today my running partner and I ran another marathon.   There was a bit of unexpected back-to-back scheduling and we inadvertently scheduled two marathons one weekend after another.   We weren’t particularly worried about it, but it wasn’t something we set out to do or a goal we had.  

There was a snag though: my neighbor had something bothering her on the top of one of her feet and she wasn’t sure what it was.    We’re in that age bracket where something that might be minor to a younger body could turn into a longer-term injury and neither she nor I wanted her to be out from running just because we’d signed up for the race.

Last night we talked about it and she said she wanted to go out and run at least some of the race.   This morning as we waited in line she told me I was going to have to be rather firm with her because she thought she wasn’t always the best judge of when it was good to say enough is enough.   I told her she knew me and that wouldn’t be a problem at all.

We ran the two miles on roads to the mail trail, which ran along an old train track.   The marathon was mostly running up and back two sections of the track.    We had listened to the announcement at the beginning saying you had to follow the full or half marathon paths and you couldn’t switch based on the amount of registrants they had.   However, they said, if you couldn’t finish the marathon that was okay, all you needed to do was come back to the starting area after completing the first leg of the marathon—about seventeen miles.  

So we went out and I told her we could turn around at any point.   We got to the marathon turn at close to nine miles and she decided at that point that yes, we should head back when we got back to the junction.   I said that was good because she was going to have do some serious convincing to get me to go on.

We turned to go back and realized we were watching some of the early marathon runners pass us to head to the finish line.   It was pretty exciting.    When we got back and ran through the finish gate we initially didn’t think anything of it because our timing chips hadn’t crossed some of the latter sections, thus disqualifying us from the race.   We got some fruit, caught up with Uncle Jonathan and Margaret and then headed home.  

When I got in we started getting messages from Uncle Jonathan: we had come in first and second places in our age/gender and we’d gotten first and second for Masters for women.   Oh crap.   We hadn’t been disqualified yet and there were some very fast, likely tired and very fit ladies who weren’t going to get their awards.     We had no intention of causing confusion.

Thanks to Uncle Jonathan who was still there and listening to the ceremony, he let them know so the true winners could be given their awards.     Thanks Margaret and Uncle Jonathan

The Big Boy Update:  We were at a stop light yesterday when my husband said, “I keep wanting to go to that place, ’The Butcher’s Market’”.   My son chimed out from the back seat, “I keep wanting to go to that place right there, Old McDonalds” and pointed to a McDonalds restaurant.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter was given a pink, plush dog with a red heart between his paws last month from the hotel staff when we were in Detroit.   She named him “Broccoli Hair”.   He is neither green nor has hair.

Fitness Update:  Seventeen miles and a marathon we didn’t finish.   I’m not one bit upset or disappointed.   Preventing an injury is more important than finishing a race.