Run Megan, Run!

Well, I have now officially been upstaged not once, but twice. Yesterday, Megan completed her second half-marathon. In order to be there on time for the 8:30 a.m. start, she left the house at about 7:00 a.m. and rode with another woman in the ward who was also running the half. The kids and I arrived a little past 9:00 a.m. and drove past Megan as she was at about mile 4. We quickly parked the car near mile 5 to get out and cheer her on, but by the time my molasses-like quickness got the children out of the car, we only saw her turn the corner from the distance.

We had to decide quickly what our next step was--whether to get back in the car and try to drive to a new location to see her or not--and opted to pile 3 kids into a 2 seat stroller and try to chase her down. That didn't work really. Fortunately, the course had a lot of backtracking. At mile 8 we finally caught up with Megan. The kids were happy to see her and waved excitedly as we jogged alongside her for about 100 yards. Luckily, we managed to get ahead of her long enough to capture the following photograph:


Mile 8 also happened to be mile 12. So, we saw her coming back as well. Being the genius she is, Megan wore a bright yellow t-shirt to assist us as we strained to recognize her in the pack from a distance.


I jogged alongside her while pushing the kids in the stroller again until she finally pulled away from us and out of our sight. Megan's parents also participated in the day, running the 5K. We all finally met up at the finish line.


Regrettably, Alison and Kaitlyn both upstaged me as well by partcipating in the kids' marathon: a 1-mile run. Alison participated by running (and taking a few walking breather breaks) the entire course on her own. Kaitlyn participated by sobbing for half a mile while I carried her in my arms and on my back as I ran and tried to keep pace with Alison. Megan met us at that halfway point and Kaitlyn almost jumped into her arms; I was surprised at the sudden ease of my jog.



As we turned the final corner I pulled ahead of Ali in an attempt to get her to sprint to the finish line. Unfortunately, it had the opposite effect: she stopped running and started walking. The large crowd at the finish line immediately took her side and started yelling things like, "C'mon...you can beat your dad!" and "Don't let that ugly, slow, out-of-shape old guy getting upstaged by his entire family beat you!" Somehow, I felt a great flood of opposition and slowed considerably, just as Alison took off again and surged out in front of me beating me by "about two feet" by her estimation.


However, Max was the most exhausted of all us and immediately crashed as soon as we were able to hobble back to the car to drive home.