Race Day

Here are a couple of shots taken right after I finished. I'm impressed I'm kneeling down in the second shot and I was actually able to stand back up after! I should have some pictures that were taken during the race later and I'll post them. We obviously didn't carry a camera so we have to wait until the professional shots taken are available.

Race Day
We woke up about 4:30am and started getting ready. I had to put nipple guards on Jake. Yes folks, when you are sweaty and running for a long time your shirt rubs against your nipples and can actually become bloody! Then we both applied "sports shield" to all of our friction prone areas....inner thighs, under arms, feet etc. It was quite romantic. Once we had our bib numbers pinned on, iPods in place, running watches on and shoes double tied we headed out. Once we got there we had to go pick up our "champion chips." These are little sensors that register your start, mid-way and finish time. We clipped them to our shoes and headed for the start line. After a short send off presentation we were off, all 1500 of us.
Cheryl and I had decided to walk the first few miles to pace ourselves. It was really hard not to run because there was so much energy floating around, but we stuck to our plan and watched about 1000 people pass us by. The course took us north just over 6 miles to a turnaround point. From there we head back to the starting point to finish while the full marathon runners head south to another turnaround point then back to the same finish line. Just pass mile 3 we see someone running towards us. Yes, can you believe it was the front runner already headed back from the turn around point. We didn't feel so bad when miles passed before we saw Walter and Jake and at one point they were only 20-25 minutes ahead of us. Somewhere around mile 10 we were starting to hurt and it was getting hot. Overall though we felt good. At around 12.5 miles we see Ann-Marie and Jake as I was listening to the last two songs on my playlist, Eye of the Tiger and the Rocky theme song. As we round the corner to the finish line we picked up our pace and the crowd was great, cheering us on. About 30 feet from the finish line Cheryl grabs my arm and we sprint across the finish line. It was really an awesome moment.