Schoolers Run: Marathon #4

M ran his 4th marathon this morning - his third one in 8 months. He registered for the Mountains 2 Beach Marathon. It followed a route from Ojai down to Ventura beach. The race began early at 6am. M's dad drove him to the starting line. I got the boys up early and we were out the door with M's mom to catch him along the route. I drove up highway 33, looking for a good spot to see him. It was hard to see where the race was going to go. I finally saw a volunteer at an intersection and asked her what mile marker she was at. She told me she was at mile 9. I looked at the clock and saw that it was 7:10am. I figured if M was running 7 minute miles then he would have already passed through there. She assured me though that only 3-4 people had run through. I was skeptical but we parked anyway and waited.

After about 15 minutes we saw him coming. He wore his bright green Half Moon Bay International Marathon shirt so it stood out in the distance.

I figured the race must have started late because I knew he wasn't running that slow. L gave Daddy a high five as he passed. Poor E was so excited to see Daddy but then didn't understand why Daddy didn't stop and kept running. He started crying as soon as M ran by us and kept saying, "Daddy" over and over. We piled into the car and headed down the road to catch him again.

I saw a bunch of cars pulled over the side of the road and stopped with them. I don't know what mile we were at but figured he hadn't run through yet. There were some rocks by the side of the road that the boys climbed on. L was so good about cheering on the runners. He was yelling "Good job!" to them as they ran past. Even E started trying to say good job. It was really cute.

Pretty soon though we saw him come running by.

L got another high five. E seemed to understand the drill now and didn't cry when M kept on running.

We drove further down. I wasn't sure if we'd be able to see M again. I was concerned about making it to the finish line in time. I didn't know exactly where it was or what the parking situation was like. We saw a water station and it looked like I'd be able to get back onto the freeway pretty quickly so we decided to risk it to stop one last time. This was at mile 19. We saw M come running through. He was consistently about 1-2 minutes behind the 3:05 pace group so I knew he was on track to hit a PR and a possible Boston Qualifier. I was so proud of him already.

We made it easily to the finish line and there was plenty of parking. We met up with the rest of the family who was there to cheer M on. We saw M pass through around mile 21. L would get so excited when I would tell him Daddy was coming. He'd have his hand out ready for his high five.

It was sunny now and the last stretch was in the full sun. It was definitely warming up. I can imagine how disheartening it was to see the finish line but know he still had 5 miles left.

I got to the finish line.

Everyone else went down a way to wait for him to approach it. I wanted to be right at the finish line. I kept staring at the marathon clock. I was so nervous for him. When I saw the 3:05 pacer group pass through my stomach was in knots. But then a minute or so later I saw him approach.

He did it. He crossed through at 3:07:32.4. He was 97th overall. He PRd and qualified for Boston 2014. I was so incredibly excited and proud of him. He trained so hard, 6 days a week for this and all of his hard work paid off. He was spent after he finished (rightly so!).