Dad's First Marathon

On December 9, Dad ran his very first marathon, ever!  He is amazing.  Those of you who know him well would not be surprised.  The man hardly trained at all, was iffy about even running because of a bum knee two days before the run, and he still finished in less than five hours.  He is a stud.  And we are very proud of him.  Although Caleb is not afraid to let Dad know that he is faster than him.  Still working on that humble trait with him.  ;)

The race started at 5 a.m. just a few blocks from our house, so I headed down to the starting line with him around 4:30 or so.

 There were so many people!  All these tiny little, skinny runner's bodies.  Dad was like a giant muscle man walking through them.

 I parted with Dad as I still had sleeping children at the house.  Little did I know, I was going to miss the fireworks display at the start of the race.  Good thing I could see the start from my bedroom window!

 I even broke out "the creeper" lens to capture a pic of the runners.

 After my coffee was brewed I headed out front to catch the runners pass our building.....just 5 seconds too late.  I literally turned the corner out of the parking garage and saw the flashing lights and the blur of little bodies sprinting by.  I had JUST missed the "elite" pack.  Doh!

Oh well, this day was about Dad, so I stood and watched the endless stream of runners trotting by.  The pounding of their shoes on the pavement was mesmerizing.  Other than that, there was almost complete silence. About a block down the road, I could hear cow bells and people cheering....I wanted to go join them, but I knew the second I turned my back, I would miss Dad.

 Here he comes!

The boys and I attempted to ride our bikes there, but after an hour and a half and a fix a flat nightmare, we were back at the house loading up the car and hoping to find a parking spot in Waikiki near the finish line. Ha!

Somehow, we managed just that.  Amazing.  Unfortunately, we had missed Dad crossing the finish line.  So. So. So. Sad.

 But we were still so proud!

He has all sorts of stories to share about the race.  His top two involve runners stopping on the side of the rode to smoke cigarettes and then joining the race again, and runners grabbing the Vaseline tubes for chaffing (thinking they were gel energy shots) and eating them.  Sick!

If interested, you can CLICK HERE to see pictures of Dad throughout the marathon.  Simply enter bib number 8309 in the blank about halfway down the page.  The pictures take a second to load because there are so many!  They are all so good!