The eagle eyes of Aneron (Rachel's 8 year old daughter) finally caught sight of Grandma after she had been watching around 2 hours (Rachel was either optimistic, delusional or anxious) & I had been on the course of the St. George Marathon for 4:40:20 minutes (only the last 1:45 minutes were some of the longest of my life). Notice that the spotter had a plastic protective coating. For only the second time in 32 years it rained on the marathon day in St. George. I don't know what happened in 1983 but this year we had to stand out in the rain after the buses dropped us off which for me was about 1/2 hour and then slog through the miles with only moments of no rain, brief miles of sprinkling and absolutely no sunshine! The temperature was warm enough that in my summer running wear I wasn't freezing just cool. As far as my personal performance my time was faster than my estimated time of 4:45 but not sot good as I would have liked. The first 16 miles just breezed by and I must have been doing a pretty good pace because my overall mph don't reflect The Wall I ran into at mile 18 after a long, fairly steep climb. It took me several miles to quit hating myself for being there and to "gird up" my loins to the finish. It was wonderful to hear a familiar little voice shout,"There's Grandma!" And just in time Rachel got a great picture of my finish with leg muscles on display(my favorite body part & a work of 30 years), a younger male behind ~Marianism: In any race my goal is to beat 1 man, 1 woman younger than myself and this time as a qualifier of the "heavyweight division" someone thinner than me ~ and the St. George Temple in the background! 
2 comments:
Way to go mom!! You need to post more often. It is always fun to read. Like when you used to write your letters.
I will run a marathon one these days with you, not St. George though. You are such an inspiration. You put a lot of hard work into this I know.
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