Memphis Marathon: Done!

      This weekend has been quite momentous already.  Last night we traveled to Memphis in preparation for John's marathon.  And he did it!  Under his goal time!  I am so proud of him and so thankful that he was able to do this.  We went straight to Spaghetti Warehouse last night so John could eat pasta.  Unfortunately, we were not the only ones with this idea - our wait was really long, so long that they gave us our food for free.  Here is part of our wait.

This morning after dropping John off, we headed back to the hotel to change.  We went back to wait for John around the half-way point, which was on Beale Street.  The anticipation . . .




And, then, there he was!



We got three salty from sweat kisses as he ran past!  The girls were so excited to see him.

We tried to catch him at mile 14, but we just missed him.  I had done my research on how to kill time while John was running, and we girls headed to the Peabody to see the march of the ducks at 11.  I was not the only one with this idea, so it was crazy, but fun.  Bella slept through our entire visit to the Peabody.

After taking in all of the Christmas fun at the Peabody, we headed over to AutoZone Park (a baseball park), where the race was finishing.  We got there a little early, so I had a lot of baby wrangling to do, which was made more difficult by the fact that neither girl could sit in the chairs without me holding the chairs so they wouldn't fold up with the girls inside of them.  But, before long, we spotted him, running around the bend.




He did great!  I really could not be more proud of him.  It has been hard-fought training, involving injury, physical therapy, stretching, a lot of time and a lot of energy and a lot of time.  We are both glad he is finished, and he has said that he won't be doing a marathon during this stage of life again.  It is a big commitment.  But, it is wonderful to set a goal and to reach it.  He finished in 3 hours, 58 minutes and 11 seconds.  Amazing!
      Here he is with the girls, post-race.

Speaking of the girls, they really had their ups and downs, as everyone does.  One of the major downs was that Bella was wide awake from about 2:15 to 4:45 a.m.  This never happens, and I was very nervous about getting John the amount of sleep that he needed, so that meant that I was up with her, trying to get her back to sleep.  She wasn't crying, she was just wide awake and would start to whimper when I laid her back down.  It was my own marathon of 2.5 hours that I did not realize Bella had in her.
      But, I am so glad we got to accompany John and be there for this achievement.  I even thought that at 4:30 a.m. when Bella was still not seeming tired.  It was worth it.



Tonight, we are headed for dinner at John's running sensei's house - they are so kindly hosting us!