My first Marathon: last part

My brother Perry found Stephen wandering a side Street about 2 miles from the finish line.

He had gone into a McDonald's to get some orange juice and then got off course.

His eyes were rolling into the back of his head and he said he had blood in his pee. Not good!

My brother Perry begged Stephen to get on the back of his motor cycle and stop running. Stephen refused to do so, said he wanted the $500 bucks and was not going to stop until he got to the end. He got to the end ok and  we later found out he had gone an extra 3 miles when he got off the course. For 3 days after this practice marathon Stephen could not get out of bed, I had to help him in and out of bed and get all his meals for him. I felt GREAT! Poor guy! My brothers gave Stephen the $500 and I thought he wad going to split it with me. Not a chance he said, I ran further that you did and look at the shoes I had on and did not even train for 1 day! Remember he had Converse flat top basketball shoes on.

The official marathon was 2 weeks away. I knew I could make the distance and I was really thrilled about this. My parents were at the finish line. I ran the entire course and loved having some people along the way yelling for all of us. As I was running up the finish line I can still see my father leaning over the rope on the left side of the road. He looked shocked that it was really me running up the finish. People were yelling out to me,"your going to Boston, your going to Boston." I had no idea if they were talking to me or what a Boston was! 3:13 was my official time. I qualified for the Boston marathon for which I had no idea at the time that this was the marathon everyone wanted to run.

The most rewarding part of all of this as I look back is having my parents at the finish line, sharing this with my brother who still to this day loves to tell the story of how he beat the pants off of me and that with no watch I qualified for Boston.

Keeping it all simple is the fun way to train in my opinion. Time, effort, energy and the belief in yourself that you can do anything you set out to do. This is really what it is all about?

Having 3 older brother's as you can see must have had an effect on me:)

 

Happy Feet

Lisa