Marine Corps Marathon 2011

The day has arrived for my friend Meg to run in her second Marine Corps Marathon. My other friend Robyn and I went over to Meg's place where Team Meg members (Meg's parents, sister, brother-in-law, niece, cousin and aunt) all had a big pasta dinner to wish her good luck in her race today. Meg's niece was especially cute. At first she was shy around me and Robyn, but quickly warmed up to us when Robyn started to read her a stack of books. In a Maisy book, I wanted to see how she would react to some of my trick questions. For example, I would point to a penguin and ask "What noise does a penguin make?" Her answer was "Waddle, waddle, waddle," complete with her doing a waddling motion. Freakin' stinkin' cute. Robyn and I camped out in the living room area for the evening and watched Big Bang Theory, while Meg went to bed early to get ready for the big day.

It was a very early and chilly start to the day today. I have to say that I'm glad that the race wasn't yesterday because there was legitimate snow going on. And with the wet snow on the ground, it made today's walk to the team tent very muddy. I'm glad that I decided to make a last minute switch-a-roo with my shoes- taking an older pair instead of my nice white running ones. Robyn and I walked with Meg to the start line and then parted ways so that the two of us could meet up with the rest of Team Meg.

There were some interesting things that happened as we were waiting for the race to start. We saw some cool parachuters and special Marine aircrafts flying by. The wheelchair races started first and one guy crashed his bike not too long after he started. It was really scary to see all the other bikers turning to avoid hitting him. Some Marines rushed over to right his bike and off he went. We were able to catch Meg a few points during the race. She wore a shirt that said Meg on it, so it was easy to spot her. With the race so close to Halloween, we also saw many costumes: the devil, Batman, a shark, several butterflies, and Thing 1/Thing 2.

Meg's goal was to get a time below 4 hours, but we found out later on that she took a spill at Mile 7 while probably slowed her down just a tad. Her knee was badly scraped and I'm sure the impact jolted her. But, at least it's all bandaged up, courtesy of the First Aid tent, and she completed the race and we are all so proud of her! Here are some pictures from the weekend.