Big Cottonwood Marathon

 Marc has been flirting with the idea of running a marathon since the beginning of the year. He actually started training to run one in May, however, he got injured while training and opted for the Half Marathon instead. All summer, he has been diligent in training. He decided if he was going to do a marathon, he wanted to give it his all and potentially try to qualify for the Boston Marathon. I think his age group is the most competitive and they just made the qualifying time faster than it has been in the past. To qualify, Marc would have to finish under 3:09 (3 hours nine minutes). That's an average speed of 7:15 (7 minute 15 second) miles! That's blazing fast by the way! Our friend Gina was signed up for the Big Cottonwood Marathon. Her entire family was participating to celebrate her mother's 60th birthday, they had hotel rooms reserved and it was supposed to be one of the fastest marathon courses around.

I struggled big time with what to do with the kids. Our plan was to leave on the Thursday before the race so Marc could work a little bit down in Utah on Friday and the race was on Saturday. If I left the kids, I needed someone to help get them on the bus at 6:45 in the morning on Friday, be home at 11:30 when Lexi gets there, and again at 3:30 when the boys got home. To be perfectly honest, I couldn't bear to impose their schedule on anyone out here in Caldwell, and didn't even know who to ask. My family is so super busy, that even trying to have them come out to Caldwell to pick them up and take them back to Meridian and then shuffle them around just felt too much to ask. I opted for the easier solution and that was to bring them with us to help cheer on their dad.

So, we left for Utah on Thursday right after the boys got home from school. Because Marc was going down to work a little bit on Friday, his company paid for our hotel that night. It was a Motel 8, and our room literally looked out to the Interstate.

Friday, after Marc was done working we drove to the Race Expo and picked up his packet, shirt, and walked through all the vendors. 

My family had talked on and on about this store called "Scheels" which is a huge sporting goods store and there is an actual ferris wheel inside it. So, we took the kids to go see it. I got to go up with Lexi and man did it make me sick to my stomach! 

The boys were nervous, but they loved it. They keep talking about it now and Bryce has written some stories about it for school. 

At the race expo, we had spun the wheel for prizes and ended up with some free bowls of noodles, and a bogo bowl at the "Noodles" restaurant. So we paid for one bowl of noodles and had more than enough for all 6 of us to eat. After that, we went to check in at the hotel. I tried to make the kids take a nap (I selfishly wanted one too) but it was not about to happen. So I took them down to go swimming. 

Another family with boys about the same age as ours joined us while we were there. Tyler and Bryce had a good time playing with them. During this time, my husband was getting some pretty bad pre-race jitters. We tried to give him as much space and time to himself as he needed, so I took the kids out and we explored the hotel, we went for a walk, etc. The hotel put on a spaghetti dinner that night for all of the guests who were staying there. It was decent! Filled us all up. We put the kids to bed pretty early and tried to go to sleep not long after them. It was another night of tossing and turning and worrying about missing the alarm. 

Marc was up about 4:30, and out of the hotel by 5:00. I was up when he left and couldn't go back to sleep. I was nervous and excited for him. I was also worried about trying to make it to the 13 mile mark where we had planned to meet him and get some provisions to him. We were under the impression that the main road was going to be closed. I was so worried about trying to navigate back roads through an unfamiliar city that we brought the boys bikes, my bike, and the bike trailer and we rode over 5 miles (up hill) from the hotel to the point where the racers come out of the canyon and turn. I had to wake the kids up from a deep sleep. I felt awful about it. We dressed quickly and went down for the complimentary breakfast. They served scrambled eggs which Isabel couldn't get enough of.

 It was a rush to get all the bikes off the bike carrier, set up the trailer, and load it with the girls and the things we needed for the rest of the morning/afternoon. We were a little behind schedule and I absolutely did not want to miss Marc. It turns out, the road we thought was going to be closed was only closed on one side, so they were still allowing traffic. If I had known that, we would have driven the dang route! The boys were troopers and rode quickly up the long hills. I was pulling both girls in the trailer. It was a work out! There was one hill that felt like it went straight up. I had to get off and walk/pull the girls up the hill. We finally made it up to the race turn off at mile 13. There was several people up there watching. I found out from one of them that the race had started nearly 30 minutes late. That was a relief for me! We got there right as the first marathon racer was coming in. We had time to catch our breath, get our signs out, get out the stuff Marc had requested and try to find a spot where we could see. 

We didn't have to wait too long until Marc came barreling by. He had time to grab the two water bottles out of our hands and kept running. I had to go chase down the nice water bottle that he threw off a couple 100 feet down the road.

 After that we loaded everybody back up and then tried to navigate down the hill that we had climbed. We were trying to stay clear of the runners, and not go so fast that the boys were out of control. We got down to the finish line area, found a spot to eat some snacks in, then tried to go find a spot to wait for Marc to come in. We found Bryan Sorenson, he had set up a canopy to wait under and they shared it with us.

 As the clock got closer and closer to 3:09 my heart was pounding! He had looked really good at the halfway point. He was right on target time wise, but he was worried about the out and back for miles 15-20 before going back down the hill. The time that he was hoping to be in by came and went. I was feeling sad for him. I wasn't sure mentally how he would be. I think my greatest fear was him missing it by 30 seconds or 1 minute. Bryan was the first to see Marc coming into the finishing shoot. 

 We could tell her was hurting pretty good, but he was trying to finish strong. His official time was 3:18:53. He beat his last marathon time by almost an hour!!! That was amazing! Once again, I didn't know how disappointed he would be, I didn't know how much space he needed or wanted. We didn't try to hunt him down, we let him come to us when he was ready. When we saw him, he looked good! He was content. The out and back with "rolling hills" that he had worried about was more climbing that he had prepared for and it took a lot out of him. He knew by mile 20 that he wasn't going to make it in time. 

This is what Marc posted on facebook about the marathon experience: Top things learned from Saturday's Marathon - #1. Go for it and dream big. Even if you fall a little short, you're much happier with the result. #2. I am incredibly blessed with a phenomenal family. #3. Friends support and joy make a huge difference in this world. #4. It's okay to laugh at yourself with everyone else as you try to walk down the stairs. #5. Of all things, I needed a small camera to document the occasion while it happened (the course was beautiful, the moose along the way, the thousands of people brave enough to try, etc.).

We were so proud of him and all his hard work! It was a pain to have to deal with the kids, but I am really glad that they were there to cheer on their daddy as he raced. He really is their hero! Way to go Marcus!