it's a marathon. . .not a sprint

nor is it a long walk in the pouring rain, holding a fussy baby and an umbrella, while pushing a stroller. Or at least that's what I was hoping it would not become.

Today was the half marathon we decided to run (all of 3 weeks ago). So, at 3:45am, I woke a sleepy baby, to drive a quarter mile down the road to the start of the race. Why not just walk if it was that close you ask? We were saving our energy, of course! No, seriously, it's annoying, but the road down to the beach (and start point) is super curvy and dangerous with no shoulder. So, we can't walk it. Needless to say, after circling around the block for a while, we found a spot about 100 yards from our house. Perfect.

It was a really big crowd. The majority did not speak english actually- great story, but I'll get to that next time! I got some crazy looks when people realized I was not just there to see my husband off and cheer him on, but that we were both wearing bibs and that I intended to run as well and push the jogger.

The first 6-7 miles went great. Slow, but great. The breeze was cool, the crowd had thinned, and we were moving along just fine. At about mile 7 or so though, Quin was awake and I started to sense that she was getting restless. So, knowing that there was probably a breakfast/diaper break in the near future, I decided to run ahead of Ryan for a while to get some space between us. This way, when I did have to stop, hopefully Quin would be all set by the time he caught us and we could all run again. Well, so much for best laid plans. About this time it started to rain, and it was all down hill from there. And I don't mean the course in a literal sense! By about mile 8.5, Quin was crying- time for breakfast. At this point I wanted to at least keep walking. So, I held the baby, fed her with the Boon spoon, and pushed the jogger with my third arm. We must have been quite the scene, judging by the reactions. If you know japanese, google it- try 'crazy marathon lady'. I am sure a japanese visitor has posted one of the 100 pictures that were taken of us by now!?

Quin never recovered from this point on. I can't blame her. Two hours is a long time to sit in a stroller. Ryan caught up and continued on with out us. The fact that he was actually still running at mile 9 was amazing (not that I didn't believe in you, babe) so I told him to keep going. I figured I would start again once Quin settled down. After walking about 1.5 miles or so (I think the mile markers were off though, because it felt like about 5 miles) holding a baby, umbrella, juggling our crap, and looking utterly insane, I was over it. About that time, Quin actually fell asleep and I was able to put her back in the jogger and run the last 2 miles. We won't talk about how long it took- but we made it.

On a much higher note- Ryan did great. He was able to run the entire race!! I think he even surprised himself!! Although, when I started to discuss the plan of attack for the next half marathon coming up in November, he replied he had no desire to talk about running for any reason.

Oh- and one more thing it's not. . . a costume party?!? Apparently, the person responsible for translating the info and sending it to the japanese runners messed something up. Because they were showing up in costumes. I enjoy running- but dress up? That is a sure, quick way to ruin a run for me.