Thank God it is May:
On Saturday, April 29th, after coaching two lacrosse games the night before, at 10:30 am I left to coach three more games. All of which we lost...it has been a very rough season. From there I left to go into San Francisco, thankfully one of my assistant coaches was able to by me a pizza so I had dinner, to watch Karin perform. She was amazing, truly the highlight of the show. Then at 10PM directly from the show we packed up our car and began the two hour drive to Monterey, CA. I was able to sleep about an hour as Karin made great time finding our hotel without any problem.
It was 12:30AM, I had set out everything I would need for the morning. My running shorts and shirt, sweats, water bottle, shoes, socks, baby lotion, a cliff bar, and perhaps a few other things that I cannot remember at this time. When my alarm went of at 3:30AM I could not believe it, but for just a moment. I jumped into duty mode and got ready. At about 3:45AM I walked next door where my brother-in-law, Jon had my race bag, and sister-in-law, Amy were ready to climb into the car. Any sense of pity I had for what I was doing left when I saw Amy, she was giving us a ride to the bus and not even running in the race, so I sucked it up.
We were dropped off on a street corner in downtown Monterey, at 4:00AM and the streets were alive. People in sweats with hats or skull caps all over the place. We just fell in line with the crowd and next thing I knew we were all at a long like of school buses. For people who have run these races before this whole ritual is normal, for me it would have seemed just as likely to have space aliens show up at some point. It still felt like much more of a dream then reality.
So we boarded the bus. Jon and I sat down, and surprisingly a friend from Oakland named Dee was seated right next to us. This was her twentieth marathon. We talked briefly, and then I went back to thinking about the space aliens that were meeting us.
The staging are was pretty cool. Jon got me some coffee and it did the trick, so I was off the the port-o-let, the line was just long enough for everything to work out great by the time I made it in there. Walking there and back I was able to see Dee again, but surprised not to see any of the aliens.
The race was amazing. Only the Alps could compare to the beauty which we got to enjoy that day. And I would not have been able to enjoy it, or even finish the race, if it were not for my brother-in-law, Jon. Jon was not only a encourager to me but to everyone that was around us. He constantly reminded us to look at why we were doing this. He always had great words for me, and even dropped some knowledge on me. Did you know that the original marathon was only 25 miles long. And the Queen of England is the person who lengthened it to 26.2 because she did not want to go out on the street to see the London marathon, and at the longer distance it would go by Buckingham Palace. So Jon gave me permission to curse the queen at mile 25. My response was you mean I wasn't supposed to be cursing her now. And that really was a wonderful, and fun joke we carried on the entire race.
Somewhere around eight miles there was a two or three mile hill, very challenging. I was able to continue running the entire way, after completing that I knew I could do it. At mile 15 I began to get very emotional, when I told Jon he understood and told me that would be nothing compared to what I would experience finishing the race. You see not only was there 20 weeks of training involved in this race, but I set this goal to run a marathon about five years ago. Also my goal was to complete this before I turn thirty, so I had lots of thoughts and feelings about the birthday that is awaiting me.
I was able to run the entire way...even though at times my run was as fast as Jon's power walking. I finished in 4 hours 24 minutes, 1343 out of 4000. By the time I saw the finish line I had tears running down my face. This truly was third on all time events of my life, marriage and birth of Aidyn being right there.
We made it back home about 4 PM on Sunday, just in time for church. We decided to walk there as a family, knowing that would significantly help me be less sore today. My left knee hurts, and I have some other minor race related pain. Sleeping last night was tough, when I slept I slept well, but everytime I tried to more I woke up. This was an amazing experience, and perhaps some of those 1342 who finished before me were actually the aliens I had been looking for that morning.
On Saturday, April 29th, after coaching two lacrosse games the night before, at 10:30 am I left to coach three more games. All of which we lost...it has been a very rough season. From there I left to go into San Francisco, thankfully one of my assistant coaches was able to by me a pizza so I had dinner, to watch Karin perform. She was amazing, truly the highlight of the show. Then at 10PM directly from the show we packed up our car and began the two hour drive to Monterey, CA. I was able to sleep about an hour as Karin made great time finding our hotel without any problem.
It was 12:30AM, I had set out everything I would need for the morning. My running shorts and shirt, sweats, water bottle, shoes, socks, baby lotion, a cliff bar, and perhaps a few other things that I cannot remember at this time. When my alarm went of at 3:30AM I could not believe it, but for just a moment. I jumped into duty mode and got ready. At about 3:45AM I walked next door where my brother-in-law, Jon had my race bag, and sister-in-law, Amy were ready to climb into the car. Any sense of pity I had for what I was doing left when I saw Amy, she was giving us a ride to the bus and not even running in the race, so I sucked it up.
We were dropped off on a street corner in downtown Monterey, at 4:00AM and the streets were alive. People in sweats with hats or skull caps all over the place. We just fell in line with the crowd and next thing I knew we were all at a long like of school buses. For people who have run these races before this whole ritual is normal, for me it would have seemed just as likely to have space aliens show up at some point. It still felt like much more of a dream then reality.
So we boarded the bus. Jon and I sat down, and surprisingly a friend from Oakland named Dee was seated right next to us. This was her twentieth marathon. We talked briefly, and then I went back to thinking about the space aliens that were meeting us.
The staging are was pretty cool. Jon got me some coffee and it did the trick, so I was off the the port-o-let, the line was just long enough for everything to work out great by the time I made it in there. Walking there and back I was able to see Dee again, but surprised not to see any of the aliens.
The race was amazing. Only the Alps could compare to the beauty which we got to enjoy that day. And I would not have been able to enjoy it, or even finish the race, if it were not for my brother-in-law, Jon. Jon was not only a encourager to me but to everyone that was around us. He constantly reminded us to look at why we were doing this. He always had great words for me, and even dropped some knowledge on me. Did you know that the original marathon was only 25 miles long. And the Queen of England is the person who lengthened it to 26.2 because she did not want to go out on the street to see the London marathon, and at the longer distance it would go by Buckingham Palace. So Jon gave me permission to curse the queen at mile 25. My response was you mean I wasn't supposed to be cursing her now. And that really was a wonderful, and fun joke we carried on the entire race.
Somewhere around eight miles there was a two or three mile hill, very challenging. I was able to continue running the entire way, after completing that I knew I could do it. At mile 15 I began to get very emotional, when I told Jon he understood and told me that would be nothing compared to what I would experience finishing the race. You see not only was there 20 weeks of training involved in this race, but I set this goal to run a marathon about five years ago. Also my goal was to complete this before I turn thirty, so I had lots of thoughts and feelings about the birthday that is awaiting me.
I was able to run the entire way...even though at times my run was as fast as Jon's power walking. I finished in 4 hours 24 minutes, 1343 out of 4000. By the time I saw the finish line I had tears running down my face. This truly was third on all time events of my life, marriage and birth of Aidyn being right there.
We made it back home about 4 PM on Sunday, just in time for church. We decided to walk there as a family, knowing that would significantly help me be less sore today. My left knee hurts, and I have some other minor race related pain. Sleeping last night was tough, when I slept I slept well, but everytime I tried to more I woke up. This was an amazing experience, and perhaps some of those 1342 who finished before me were actually the aliens I had been looking for that morning.
posted by michaelstevensrev at 1:12 PM
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