Marathon Day! (For my Seester!)

Oh man I can't believe that it's been a year already since the Kalamazoo Marathon.  But this year, its not me who is running it!  It is still exciting all the same.  And I am was so very excited to help cheer my sister on through her experience.

We weren't actually sure if she was going to be able to run it.  She had signed up last minute (because she does live in WV and you don't want to pay all that $$ to not have it happen) and then the week before the marathon her whole family got sick, and then the one child who didn't get sick ended up in the hospital with myostitis.  :(  Of course after all that my sister did end up getting sick towards the end of the week and who wants to run a marathon sick?  I mean, most would argue, who wants to run a marathon period let alone not feeling the greatest.  Well, the warrior my sister is ran the stinking thing anyway!  I was worried for her the entire week because I know how disappointed I would be if I had trained for all of it and then at the last minute I wasn't able to... but she wasn't going to let something simple like being sick stop her!

Her child that was in the hospital got discharged late Thursday night and then Friday afternoon her family took off for the long trek to Michigan... talk about go go go!  She had a little mini rest on Saturday where she came home with us to spend the night so we could take her early to the race the next morning.  Lucy and I picked up the race packet for my sister Saturday afternoon and just picking up her packet made me all emotional because I was so proud of her already!  It may seem silly but I get that way...

Anyhoo, Norah was up early enough for a feeding that I ended up taking Holly to the start line... well, I got her there as close as I could.  It was BUSY (must busier than I remember it being when Gaetan dropped me off but we were about 15 minutes earlier than what Holly wanted... I guess it made all the difference!  I wished her luck and then got home to get my family ready to meet her and cheer her on on the course!

Up early early ready to go!

Her cheering section at mile 14!

Happy she is finished!

My Dad and her family drove down together and met up with her all over the course!  They met her around mile 7, 13, and then 21ish where they actually ran/walked the rest of the course in with her.  Poor lady was struggling to breath around mile 7 and around the half way part she was looking like she was laboring pretty hard.  She did finish the whole stinking thing which I was so proud of her determination!  She was hoping to finish in 4 hours (which is really fast!  A 10 minute/mile pace is 4:20... so it was closer to 9 min/mile to finish in 4...) and she wanted to try and beat my time of 4:15 but due to her situation she was just happy to finish.  During her training she only did one 20 miler, so I was worried that she was going to hit that wall for the last 10K... which she did.  And yeah, one would think "what's another 10K after you've already run 20?"  the answer... a lot.  Shoot, even the last 5K is super painful... and for those of us that are noobs at running marathons its just sheer will power to get to the finish... that and you're out in the middle of no where so you still have to get back somehow so you might as well run. ;)

She recovered from her marathon physically a lot better than I did.  But she was still sick so she was trying to get better.  I am still super proud of her and her accomplishments.  Having 4 children and being able to train and run it is nothing to overlook.  She's glad that she finished it (wasn't so sure while she was running it haha) but thinks that she will probably stick to the half marathon distance (which I totally agree!)  So, good work Holly!  You have joined the marathoner club ;)  Wear that 26.2 sticker on your van proudly!  yay!

JVG