When John and I knew the dates for Ethan and Rebecca's graduation, John's first thought was whether there was a marathon somewhere in Utah during that week. As fate would have it, the Salt Lake City marathon was the weekend before graduation. BAM!
John signed up for the full marathon, despite the fact that he's never really prepared for a spring marathon, coming off the winter break. I signed up for the 5K, because on any given day, I walk or jog more miles than that. Johannah and Ethan signed up for the half marathon--Ethan signed up because, miracle of miracles, he is developing his own (father-inspired) love affair with running, and Hannie signed up for it....just because. Rebecca was a sport and signed up to do the 5K also, although I have no doubt that she could have gone much further.
I can't begin to express my happiness at doing something like this as a family again. I've spent too many races sitting on the sidelines, and I didn't want to do it yet again. No siree, I wanted to be part of the winners' circle at the end.
We flew in the night before the marathon and got to the convention center just in time to pick up our packets. Because I wanted to watch The Amazing Race, and because we were in Mountain Time Zone, and it came on at 7:00 (versus 8:00 at home), we rushed back to the hotel to catch the show and just ordered pizza. And this is where the biggest inside Kennedy joke for the last while began: "Amazing Race at 7. Definitely at 7," said in the spirit of Dustin Hoffman's "Rainman" and "Wapner at 7. Definitely at 7." Little did I know that my wanting to see that show would haunt me for the next many moons. We went old-
school, sleeping all of us in one room (with poor Hannie on the floor) so that we could be ready to go at the crack of dawn.
The next morning, we were rearing to go. John, Ethan and Hannie were out the door first, ready to catch the free shuttle to the starting line. There was at lot at stake: we were hoping that John wouldn't end up injuring himself somewhere along the way; Ethan was hoping for a personal record (PR), with 2 hours, 9 minutes being his fastest so far; and in my heart of hearts, I was just hoping that Hannie would finish, because as much exercise as she gets everyday between walking several miles to and from school and taking a couple of gym classes, she hadn't done much actual
running in preparation.
Rebecca and I left a bit later, and we just walked to our starting line. No joke, coming from snow and misery in PA, it felt like heaven to walk out to sunshine and blue skies.
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| Rebecca and I at the starting line. People say there "may" be a resemblance between the two of us :-) |
I like the SLC event, because it's much smaller than other races. No mile-long starting group like in Baltimore and Disney, and no mile-long walk to the starting line like the AF marathon. It was easy to get to, and not crazy busy.
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Johannah, Hannah and Ethan at their starting line.
This might just be the first time I've ever seen Ethan SMILE before a race! |
I went to the back of the crowd, because I knew, as always, I would end up running slower than the runners, but faster than the joggers. And the greatest feeling of that day? I didn't walk one step. Nope. I ran the entire race. Boy, I was proud of myself. And the even better part was that as I ran up to the finish line, the announcer yelled my name. And when I fist pumped the air, he yelled out, "All the way from Pennsylvania!" I've always wanted to have my name announced at the finish line, so that was super cool for me. Plus, I could have run further; it felt like a just a warmup to my usual mileage. If that didn't make me feel good, I don't know what would have.
In the end, it was a great day for all of us. Ethan set a PR by finishing his 13.1 miles in 2 hours (exactly). He and Rebecca left immediately after because Ethan had a FINAL to take an hour later. Six words for that: this is what we do, BABY!!!
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| I can't even begin to express how happy we all were for Cheese. He had an AMAZING run! |
Hannah came in next. What a woman! Even though she hadn't trained specifically for the race, she showed the power in working out, because she finished STRONG!
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| Just look at this girl--finishing STRONG! |
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| Don't you just love her hash tags?? |
So, funny story (I know, no surprise, right?) Hannah and I were waiting for John to come in. He had told us that he wouldn't be coming in under five hours, so I set my alarm for four and a half. Hannie and I then went under some trees and just talked and people watched. In fact, I was looking at her gorgeous blue eyes (that I haven't seen in forever), and I noticed that her eyes aren't exactly blue. Check this out:
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| She has some crazy greenish-yellow color in her baby blues. As if she wasn't beautiful enough! |
Yep, we were totally wasting time, waiting for John to come in. Five minutes before my alarm was set to go off (so I could catch John at the finish line), I heard the announcer say, "JOHN KENNEDY from PORT MATILDA, PENNSYLVANIA!" What? Hannie and I jumped up...well, I did....and rushed over to the finish line. Leave it to John to be Speedy Gonzalez that day and make me miss him crossing the finish line! Congratulations to him though for knocking 30 minutes off his previous marathon time....and no injuries!
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| At least I got a pic AFTER :-) |
John was a genius. It was a brilliant way to start off a wonderful week together.
After the race, we headed back to the hotel to sit in the hot tub and take a nap. What a brilliant place to stay--a free shuttle to the start line, and a short half-mile walk back to the hotel.
That night, we met up with Buddy and Mike's family at The Olive Garden. It was just around the corner from our hotel, so we just walked there also. For once, I was the FASTEST! :-)
After dinner, John wanted to find ice cream, and a few folks jumped on board. It turned out to be a fun, let's-see-what-we-can-find-to-do sort of evening.
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| John, Mike and Buddy. It's amazing to us East-Coasters, how close the temple always is. |
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| This picture was TOTALLY Bud's idea :-) |
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| Oh sure--try and take a nice, well-constructed selfie.... |
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We ended up taking our ice cream to Bud's workplace.
How nice it would be to work somewhere with a foosball table! |
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| It wouldn't be a true Kennedy event without John and Mike arm wrestling. You have to love the anxiety shown by Mike's son, John, in the background. He REALLY wants his dad to win. |
A couple of days later (after our trip to Arizona), the Kennedy family would get together again. Mike had suggested that we attend a comedy show. I looked up the show, and to be honest I have planned a lot of trips with a lot of activities, and it did NOT look like a winner. However, John wanted to spend time with his family (of course), so we ponied up the money and went.
It was absolutely terrible. In fact, Buddy tried to convince our family to leave and go out to dinner together, but we didn't want anyone's feelings to be hurt. So we stayed. The best part about the evening? We got a great (and hilarious) family group shot outside the theatre:
I'm so thankful to my cute family that knows what to do when I say "Now change your pose!" for a second picture :-)
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