Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Marathon Marty

He did it!!! He finished and he is still alive, and actually doing very well. Saturday was the Ogden Marathon, Marty's first and he claims his last marathon. In about November last year Marty said that he was going to run a marathon. His family didn't really think he would do it, but after 16 long weeks of training he did. I think he decided he had to do it since he had told too many people and he had to save face.

He had to be in Ogden at the bottom of the canyon to catch the bus at 5 AM. We decided to stay at my mom's house in Bountiful so he won't have to get up quite as early. Unfortunately her basement is very loud and no one got much sleep. Marty tried to go to bed early, so he didn't even get to watch the disappointing final Jazz playoff game. It was about 30 degrees when they arrived in the canyon. They were all huddled around bonfires for an hour and a half before the race began. Then there was a major temperature change. Saturday was very hot, the high for the day was 87 degrees. Fortunately it wasn't quite that hot at 10 AM but the heat made it very difficult for him to finish. Despite the heat, he was still able to finish in 4 hours and 36 minutes. I'm so proud of him that he was even able to run 26.2 miles and to finish under 5 hours is a huge accomplishment.

Marty's parents, and two of his sisters, Erika and Andrea met me and the kids to help cheer Marty on at the finish line. We couldn't believe how hot is was just standing there waiting. There were several runners who couldn't make it to the finish line on their own and many who had to be treated by the paramedics for heat exhaustion. We were all so excited for him when we saw him coming down the stretch.

Marty has hung up him shoes and says he will never run again (we'll see). He is very excited to be finished with the long Saturday runs so he can get back to his yard work.

Everyone waiting at the finish line.

Riley, Erika, Nathan, Tyler, Katrina,

Sharon, Andrea, Gracie, Faith & Mitchell (in the stroller).

The kids waiting patiently in the shade with Grandpa Dee.




The family together at the finish line.

4 comments:

Laurie said...

Go Marty! Wahoo! Come run the Logan marathon....

Steph said...

I googled 'blogs2books' and your blog came up. I am trying to use this service to print my blog but it is not showing my comments. Do you mind if I ask you whether or not you were successful in incorporating the comments? I promise that I am not a total nut-case! Just really trying to get some help on this! My email address is on my profile page.

Jen A. said...

Awesome, Marty!! Congratulations, what a great accomplishment!..I have thought about doing a marathon, but has pretty much stayed in the thought process. Darin and I ran in a team relay marathon, it was fun, but nothing like doing the entire 26.2 by yourself!!

Jeff said...

Hey! I didn't know you did that kind of stuff! I guess I havent seen you in a while..... a long while... cool stuff!

Jeff Martineau