Marathon Man

Last year I started talking about running a half marathon. But just talking about it. Nothing more. I talked to Matt's brother Brent about it so he started talking about it too. We talked about several different races we could do, a 5K to get us started, when we would run the half, which one we would do. A lot of talk. Then at Thanksgiving Brent told us about the ING. It's in March so we have plenty of time to train, blah, blah, blah, etc. So supposedly Matt, Brent and I started training for a half marathon. But in reality Matt was in the last semester of nursing school, super busy with clinical work and final exams. Which meant that I was a single mom. So we put off our "training" until after the new year. And then we had the coldest winter that Georgia has ever seen. So we started going to the gym and running on the treadmill. And let me just say that for me, that is torture. Pure torture. And we weren't very consistent. With five kids there is always something else to do. So I decided that I wouldn't do it. If I couldn't run all 13.1 miles, I didn't want to do it. But Matt was committed. Mostly because he had committed two of his friends from work to doing it also. Committed, not so much to training but to doing the race. But a week before the race he still hadn't registered. His brother hadn't either.

It was a week before the race, hours before the registration deadline and those guys spent at least two hours texting back and forth and talking on the phone. Waiting for the other to register. One wouldn't do it without the other. Finally Matt did it. And Brent followed suit. It was official. They were running a half marathon.

The day before the race, Matt went to pick up his race packet. And he texted me this picture:

And this message:

"We're supposed to do this kind of stuff together. Miss you."

He was right. I should have done it just to do it with him. I felt it then and I really felt it the next morning riding the Marta into the city at 5 am. And even more when we arrived at Centennial Park. We met up with Brent and I walked them to the start. There were so many people there, it was amazing.

Here they are right before they started.



And this is after they finished.



Matt finished in 3:00:58. Brent was 2:20ish. It was so amazing to see Matt finish. I am so proud of him. My sister and her family and my cousin Ami and her family were all there to see him finish. And everyone was inspired.

We got home and registered for the Peachtree Road Race on the 4th of July. It's a 10K. It will be the first race of many that we will do together.