19 years and counting. That's how many years John has been participating in the Air Force marathon. And when I say participating, I mean running the entire 26.2 mile distance each year. We framed the first ten years of medals, but I'm thinking we need to reopen that frame and frame the rest.
This year, I was running the 10K, a completely reasonable distance for someone like me who isn't running much these days.
We had a crazy plan: drop Glo off in Toledo so she could stay with her brothers for the weekend and attend the UNLV/Michigan game with them, drive down to Dayton, run the marathon, and drive back up on Sunday to pick up Glo and drive home. On paper, it seemed fairly easy, but the turnpike construction gods had different plans...as well as John's improper sense of time.
John told me that packet pick-up ended at 9 p.m. on Friday night. With us planning on leaving around noon from State College, that gave us 30 minutes bonus time to get there. I wasn't worried at all. Then, about three hours into our drive, I went to look up my bib number and noticed that the actual pickup time ended at 8 p.m., and according to our GPS, we would arrive fifteen minutes late if we drove with no interruptions.
John freaked out. I would like to put that a bit nicer or better, but there's no other way of saying it. I got frustrated because he kept badgering me to figure out a faster way to drop off Glo and still get to packet pickup. His best solution was to have Ethan drive several hours to pick her up. I nixed that idea.
In the meantime, John wasn't paying any attention to the gas gauge in the car, and he suddenly turned to me and said, "We need to find a gas station." I had a quick look at the dashboard. I keep the messages on Greenie telling me how many more miles until an empty tank. My heart sank when I saw "-- miles to empty tank". Unfortunately, with the stress, he hadn't thought about filling the tank when we had stopped at a rest area only 30 minutes earlier.
We hopped off the turnpike, and John asked the lady working the toll booth where the closest gas station was. She yelled a curt, "Straight ahead!" at which point John took the exit to the right. Like I said, there's no nice way to say that he was freaking out.
After driving for 7 minutes and another three miles, I decided to ask Siri for a gas station. She told me there was one 1.5 miles away. It was with 0.9 miles remaining that Greenie ran out of gas. In fact, if it had not been for the fact that it was a downward hill to the gas station, and if it had not been for a light being green, we would not have made it within five feet of the gas pump, and we would have been pushing Greenie a lot farther than we did.
With that mess-up, we lost another 15 minutes. At this point, I took the wheel and John started calling people at the marathon. He left messages and was relieved when a few minutes later, "Rachel" returned our call. She told us that she would be happy to grab out packets for us and either get them to us that night (if we showed up before she left), or in the morning before the race.
John felt much better at this point, but believe you me, I was fuming. I pride myself on being on time and organized, and even though it works out pretty much every time John gets himself in a mess like this, I don't function well in this type of situation.
We basically threw Glo out of the car when we arrived at a Chipotle in Perrysburg, Ohio. We threw the baby shower gifts also, and gave Ethan and Rebecca a quick hug. And we were off.
We ended up arriving in Dayton about 25 minutes late. Thankfully, Rachel was still there, although she had forgotten to grab our t-shirts. John started giving her some crap about that, and I called him out for it afterwards. I can never stay mad at John for any length of time though. We horked down some Texas Roadhouse for dinner (at 9 p.m.) and drove to our hotel to get ready for the next day, and to try and get some sleep.
The next morning, we woke up bright and early. Thankfully, the marathon seems to have finally worked out the traffic situation. The parking situation, unfortunately, remains largely the same. I measured it this year: it's 1.5 miles from the parking lot to the starting line. That means by the time the full marathoners get to, run the race, and get back to their cars, they have actually moved 29.2 miles. That's insane. And although there's no comparison, my measly 10K (or 6 miles) turned into a 15K (or 9 miles) by the end of it all. The Air Force seriously needs to fix that.
I know that I'm basically always sick when I run, but I was really, really sick for this race. In fact, I have surgery scheduled for chronic sinusitis, because on this day, I was once again suffering from a three-month long sinus infection. I can actually see the sickness in my eyes in every picture. However, I'm sick of being sick, and six miles didn't seem too long.
We arrived with plenty of time to visit the porta-potties and see the opening ceremonies. They honestly never disappoint, reminding us all of our feelings about our country. After the national anthem, the jet for the marathon this year, the U-2 "Dragon Lady", flew overhead. We stood in disbelief as the announcer told us that the pilot had brought her down from 70,000 feet (or 14 miles) where she usually flies.
So, something that had been worrying John for the week preceding the marathon was a pain that he was feeling in his right calf muscle. While running, the pain had come on, and he had stayed off of it leading up to the marathon. He had been asking all of us to pray for him to finish the race, mostly because he didn't know what was going to happen with his calf.
When we separated at the beginning of the race, he left me in tears. I could tell that he was more stressed about it than he had even let on.
The full marathon and the 10K actually started at the same time, so neither of us had to wait at all. The gun went off, and we were off. And once again, I was faced with the 2.5 miles of straight up hill. There are professional marathoners who actually won't run in the AF marathon, because of the torture of the hills. I always try and convince myself that it's not as bad as I remember (kind of like giving birth), and yet I think it gets worse each year. After two miles, I had to stop running and just speed walk, trying to catch my breath.
And it was at that point that the negative thoughts and feelings started up. They are never far from the front of my mind, but it's kind of like they all start running their own race when I'm racing. It doesn't take long for them to tell me that I'm no good, that I'm slower than everyone else, that I can't do it. But thankfully, this time, I was prepared. A 10K is such a reasonable distance that I didn't doubt that I could finish it. And with my constant slew of health problems, I was going to take finishing as an accomplishment, no matter how slow.
And I realized that I needed a new strategy. Something that would take my mind off of my mind. And I decided to enjoy the race. In fact, I pulled out my phone and started taking pictures of anything and everything that I found amusing, or cool, or inspirational. I took pictures of people's funny t-shirts (the best was "Three months ago I thought this was a good idea..."), and I took video. In fact, a bonus of running the 10K was being able to see the landing paratroopers for the winner of the 10K. The course is circular, so we weren't far from the finish line (as the crow flies) when we were actually still three miles away from the finish line. What did I do? Took video of them while running!
Too, I gave myself a break. I ran the downhills, and walked the uphills. I swear though that 90% of that course is uphill, because I sure didn't do much running!
A crazy thing though. Around mile 3 (this would be mile 7 or 8 for John), I had the strongest impression that John needed help. Like, he needed a LOT of help. So, while running down an overpass, I typed out a FB post, asking people to pray for him. I didn't know what was going on, but I trusted the promptings of the Spirit. Finally, during the last mile of my run, I had the feeling that I could take down the post (which I did).
As I crossed the finish line, I was insanely proud of myself. I was able to stifle the negative voices, and have a really fun run! However, I still wasn't sure I deserved a medal (seeing as we 10K runners weren't given one at the Cherry Festival), so when I ran through the chute after crossing the finish line, I was stopped by one of the commanders who said, "Hold on there, little lady. You need a medal. After all, it's the best part of the race," and he put it around my neck and gave me the kindest smile. Yep, I love the military, and the people in it. And I love my medal.
And instead of feeling the pressure to keep moving (to make way for people coming up behind me), I took out my phone and turned the camera on myself :-)
Despite the sick eyes, the fever, and the lack of preparation, I loved this race. I really did feel proud finishing. And no joke, without stopping I grabbed as many goodies as I could hold, and just kept walking back to the car. After all, I still had another 1.5 miles to go!
I got back to the car, drove the 30 minutes back to the hotel, showered, drove the 30 minutes to First Watch (my favorite restaurant on the planet), picked up my fresh fruit crepe and home fries, and drove back to the marathon to pick up John. As it turned out, the parking was all open now, so I got Greenie as close as I could to the finish line, parking in the VIP parking lot.
And I waited.
John told me to count on 4 hours and 30 minutes as a finish time. Knowing that he came in 30 minutes early in the SLC marathon in April, I wasn't taking any chances. I got there with time to spare, but it wasn't until 4:45 that I saw his blue shirt and orange hat coming down the final stretch.
I could tell that he was suffering, but as we all do when we see our loved ones at the finish line, he kicked it in. And it was all I could do to stand there and wait for him to go through the finish area. When he finally emerged, he looked like Santa with his pack. He had taken the metal sheet used by runners to warm up after the race, and filled it full of anything and everything he could grab (and yes, he walked around the backs of the tables and grabbed tons of stuff). Thankfully, we only had a few feet to walk to the car.
And then the story began. As John wrote it on Facebook:
Today Larisa Kennedy and I were in Dayton Ohio, so she could run the 10k and I could run my 18th USAF Marathon. The problem is, two weeks ago I was out running, and I got a sharp pain in my right calf. I've rested it and stretched it, but I can still feel something sore. But I had to run, it's my yearly tradition. So I asked for lots of prayers and at 7:30 am started the run. So, I was running okay until mile seven when I got terrible pain in my calf. It was so bad I almost fell. I thought, I can't walk 19 miles. So I started to stretch and walk about a minute every mile. It still hurt but I could keep going. But it was tough and I kept wondering if I could keep going. Then at mile 13, the pain, out of the blue, dulled to a milder pain, and I ran and walked to finish in 4 hours 45 minutes. Better than last year when I got 4:54. I really feel all the prayers got me through it. My right calf hurts like crazy now, but I finished. I'm thankful my family and friends got me through it, and God answered my prayers and theirs.
As we compared notes, I realized that I had been prompted during my run to ask for prayers for John, and when the prayers had worked, the Spirit let me know that I didn't need to ask anymore. Isn't that so beautiful?
As it turned out, John tore his calf muscle. Two weeks later, and the entire leg below the knee is swollen, and blood has pooled in his foot. He's doing physical therapy on it, hoping that it will be well enough to take him the 26.2 miles in Baltimore in two weeks. We shall see!
Meanwhile, Glo had a nice time in Ann Arbor with the kids. The funnest part that I could tell was them seeing themselves on the Jumbotron!
We actually surprised John by driving to Ann Arbor to pick up Glo where the kids and Beth and Grammy had a small surprise birthday party for him. It's his last year to live it up in his 40s!
This year, I was running the 10K, a completely reasonable distance for someone like me who isn't running much these days.
We had a crazy plan: drop Glo off in Toledo so she could stay with her brothers for the weekend and attend the UNLV/Michigan game with them, drive down to Dayton, run the marathon, and drive back up on Sunday to pick up Glo and drive home. On paper, it seemed fairly easy, but the turnpike construction gods had different plans...as well as John's improper sense of time.
John told me that packet pick-up ended at 9 p.m. on Friday night. With us planning on leaving around noon from State College, that gave us 30 minutes bonus time to get there. I wasn't worried at all. Then, about three hours into our drive, I went to look up my bib number and noticed that the actual pickup time ended at 8 p.m., and according to our GPS, we would arrive fifteen minutes late if we drove with no interruptions.
John freaked out. I would like to put that a bit nicer or better, but there's no other way of saying it. I got frustrated because he kept badgering me to figure out a faster way to drop off Glo and still get to packet pickup. His best solution was to have Ethan drive several hours to pick her up. I nixed that idea.
In the meantime, John wasn't paying any attention to the gas gauge in the car, and he suddenly turned to me and said, "We need to find a gas station." I had a quick look at the dashboard. I keep the messages on Greenie telling me how many more miles until an empty tank. My heart sank when I saw "-- miles to empty tank". Unfortunately, with the stress, he hadn't thought about filling the tank when we had stopped at a rest area only 30 minutes earlier.
We hopped off the turnpike, and John asked the lady working the toll booth where the closest gas station was. She yelled a curt, "Straight ahead!" at which point John took the exit to the right. Like I said, there's no nice way to say that he was freaking out.
After driving for 7 minutes and another three miles, I decided to ask Siri for a gas station. She told me there was one 1.5 miles away. It was with 0.9 miles remaining that Greenie ran out of gas. In fact, if it had not been for the fact that it was a downward hill to the gas station, and if it had not been for a light being green, we would not have made it within five feet of the gas pump, and we would have been pushing Greenie a lot farther than we did.
With that mess-up, we lost another 15 minutes. At this point, I took the wheel and John started calling people at the marathon. He left messages and was relieved when a few minutes later, "Rachel" returned our call. She told us that she would be happy to grab out packets for us and either get them to us that night (if we showed up before she left), or in the morning before the race.
John felt much better at this point, but believe you me, I was fuming. I pride myself on being on time and organized, and even though it works out pretty much every time John gets himself in a mess like this, I don't function well in this type of situation.
We basically threw Glo out of the car when we arrived at a Chipotle in Perrysburg, Ohio. We threw the baby shower gifts also, and gave Ethan and Rebecca a quick hug. And we were off.
 |
| We had both brought the same t-shirts to wear. I ended up changing mine for the race. |
The next morning, we woke up bright and early. Thankfully, the marathon seems to have finally worked out the traffic situation. The parking situation, unfortunately, remains largely the same. I measured it this year: it's 1.5 miles from the parking lot to the starting line. That means by the time the full marathoners get to, run the race, and get back to their cars, they have actually moved 29.2 miles. That's insane. And although there's no comparison, my measly 10K (or 6 miles) turned into a 15K (or 9 miles) by the end of it all. The Air Force seriously needs to fix that.
We arrived with plenty of time to visit the porta-potties and see the opening ceremonies. They honestly never disappoint, reminding us all of our feelings about our country. After the national anthem, the jet for the marathon this year, the U-2 "Dragon Lady", flew overhead. We stood in disbelief as the announcer told us that the pilot had brought her down from 70,000 feet (or 14 miles) where she usually flies.
So, something that had been worrying John for the week preceding the marathon was a pain that he was feeling in his right calf muscle. While running, the pain had come on, and he had stayed off of it leading up to the marathon. He had been asking all of us to pray for him to finish the race, mostly because he didn't know what was going to happen with his calf.
When we separated at the beginning of the race, he left me in tears. I could tell that he was more stressed about it than he had even let on.
The full marathon and the 10K actually started at the same time, so neither of us had to wait at all. The gun went off, and we were off. And once again, I was faced with the 2.5 miles of straight up hill. There are professional marathoners who actually won't run in the AF marathon, because of the torture of the hills. I always try and convince myself that it's not as bad as I remember (kind of like giving birth), and yet I think it gets worse each year. After two miles, I had to stop running and just speed walk, trying to catch my breath.
And it was at that point that the negative thoughts and feelings started up. They are never far from the front of my mind, but it's kind of like they all start running their own race when I'm racing. It doesn't take long for them to tell me that I'm no good, that I'm slower than everyone else, that I can't do it. But thankfully, this time, I was prepared. A 10K is such a reasonable distance that I didn't doubt that I could finish it. And with my constant slew of health problems, I was going to take finishing as an accomplishment, no matter how slow.
And I realized that I needed a new strategy. Something that would take my mind off of my mind. And I decided to enjoy the race. In fact, I pulled out my phone and started taking pictures of anything and everything that I found amusing, or cool, or inspirational. I took pictures of people's funny t-shirts (the best was "Three months ago I thought this was a good idea..."), and I took video. In fact, a bonus of running the 10K was being able to see the landing paratroopers for the winner of the 10K. The course is circular, so we weren't far from the finish line (as the crow flies) when we were actually still three miles away from the finish line. What did I do? Took video of them while running!
Too, I gave myself a break. I ran the downhills, and walked the uphills. I swear though that 90% of that course is uphill, because I sure didn't do much running!
A crazy thing though. Around mile 3 (this would be mile 7 or 8 for John), I had the strongest impression that John needed help. Like, he needed a LOT of help. So, while running down an overpass, I typed out a FB post, asking people to pray for him. I didn't know what was going on, but I trusted the promptings of the Spirit. Finally, during the last mile of my run, I had the feeling that I could take down the post (which I did).
And instead of feeling the pressure to keep moving (to make way for people coming up behind me), I took out my phone and turned the camera on myself :-)
Despite the sick eyes, the fever, and the lack of preparation, I loved this race. I really did feel proud finishing. And no joke, without stopping I grabbed as many goodies as I could hold, and just kept walking back to the car. After all, I still had another 1.5 miles to go!
I got back to the car, drove the 30 minutes back to the hotel, showered, drove the 30 minutes to First Watch (my favorite restaurant on the planet), picked up my fresh fruit crepe and home fries, and drove back to the marathon to pick up John. As it turned out, the parking was all open now, so I got Greenie as close as I could to the finish line, parking in the VIP parking lot.
And I waited.
John told me to count on 4 hours and 30 minutes as a finish time. Knowing that he came in 30 minutes early in the SLC marathon in April, I wasn't taking any chances. I got there with time to spare, but it wasn't until 4:45 that I saw his blue shirt and orange hat coming down the final stretch.
I could tell that he was suffering, but as we all do when we see our loved ones at the finish line, he kicked it in. And it was all I could do to stand there and wait for him to go through the finish area. When he finally emerged, he looked like Santa with his pack. He had taken the metal sheet used by runners to warm up after the race, and filled it full of anything and everything he could grab (and yes, he walked around the backs of the tables and grabbed tons of stuff). Thankfully, we only had a few feet to walk to the car.And then the story began. As John wrote it on Facebook:
Today Larisa Kennedy and I were in Dayton Ohio, so she could run the 10k and I could run my 18th USAF Marathon. The problem is, two weeks ago I was out running, and I got a sharp pain in my right calf. I've rested it and stretched it, but I can still feel something sore. But I had to run, it's my yearly tradition. So I asked for lots of prayers and at 7:30 am started the run. So, I was running okay until mile seven when I got terrible pain in my calf. It was so bad I almost fell. I thought, I can't walk 19 miles. So I started to stretch and walk about a minute every mile. It still hurt but I could keep going. But it was tough and I kept wondering if I could keep going. Then at mile 13, the pain, out of the blue, dulled to a milder pain, and I ran and walked to finish in 4 hours 45 minutes. Better than last year when I got 4:54. I really feel all the prayers got me through it. My right calf hurts like crazy now, but I finished. I'm thankful my family and friends got me through it, and God answered my prayers and theirs.
As we compared notes, I realized that I had been prompted during my run to ask for prayers for John, and when the prayers had worked, the Spirit let me know that I didn't need to ask anymore. Isn't that so beautiful?
As it turned out, John tore his calf muscle. Two weeks later, and the entire leg below the knee is swollen, and blood has pooled in his foot. He's doing physical therapy on it, hoping that it will be well enough to take him the 26.2 miles in Baltimore in two weeks. We shall see!
Meanwhile, Glo had a nice time in Ann Arbor with the kids. The funnest part that I could tell was them seeing themselves on the Jumbotron!
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| Here's the original picture: |
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| And here's the original on the Jumbotron. See them in the bottom left corner? |
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| Either they got there super early, or not many fans were interested in watching UNLV :-) |
I'm so glad you posted your race day experiences because I love hearing about you crazy, inspiring, amazing Kennedy runners!
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