The MARATHON!!

Sorry for the 2 week delay. But we finished the marathon and it was AMAZING!
We started in Union Square and headed toward the Ferry Building than along the bay past Fisherman’s Warf and to the Golden Gate Bridge. We turned away from the Golden Gate Bridge and into Golden Gate State Park, through the park and on to Great Northern Parkway along the Pacific Ocean to Lake Merced, around Lake Merced and back to Great Northern to the long awaited finish.

It was spectacular. The views were amazing the weather was perfect, the hills were just hard enough and the boring parts were not that boring.

We started early in the morning while it was still dark out, there were an estimated 30,000 in Union Square that morning. The beginning of the race was a slow start, trying to get that many people through the starting gates. But it felt like I didn’t even notice we were running until mile 10 or so.

There was so much to look at and so much to take in that I never even turned on my IPod. And believe me, some people can do it (Scooter), but I never thought I could run 26.2 miles without music in my head. But I guess I didn’t go entirely without. We passed a Bag Pipe Band, a Brass Band a Hard Core Rock Bad, a Rapper and Break-Dancers etc.

And of course the spectators and Fans! We had our names on the front off our jerseys and our honored heroes on the back. So people would yell your name as you were coming up and tell you how awesome you were doing. Some would thank you, some would just cheer, some even called out your honored heroes name as you ran by “Do it for Jeff or Boompa” for example. We obviously had all of our coaches and assistant coaches there, but then we even had our own personal cheering section - a great group of friends. Carlie, Jacob, Kyle, Matt, Jen and Beth’s Parents were a huge help, especially at mile 20 around boring Lake Merced and at mile 25 when you needed that last burst of energy.

We made it without incident, although not without pain. When we finished we were handed a tiffany box by a San Francisco Fireman in a tux and cross trainers (even Scooter got one), then a T-Shirt, and a Bagel as the poor volunteers had to cut out time chips off of our sneakers and wrapped us in a silver tinfoil like blanket. We were immediately ushered out of the “finisher’s only” area and into a SEA of people, the same people I appreciated during the race were now in between me and a chair. I didn’t know how much longer I would be able to stand and I couldn’t find anywhere to sit. We were forced to check in with TNT (to make sure we hadn’t died out there) and there was a small area of ground that we crashed on. It wasn’t 1 minute later when a staff member came by and told us we would have to keep moving, I felt like saying – I just RAN 26.2 miles, I am not moving for the next WEEK, but alas, we had to get up and limp into another tented area where we eventually hooked back up with Beth and Meredith and our cheer squad.

We took a quick “ice bath” in the ocean, although I was very slow getting in, changed into our comfy sweats and headed back to the busses for our trip back to the Hotel. It was at that point I noticed just how much everything hurt.

When we got back to the hotel we already had celebration on the mind. We went to the liquor store and then back up to the rooms for some room service. And then we were really able to enjoy the rest of our time in San Francisco. I would write more, but I figured that we can tell you all about it when we see you.