We did it!

I am not quite sure what we were thinking, but Brandon and I ran the St. George Marathon on October 3rd. This is our second marathon. My first was the St. George marathon in 2000 and Brandon's was the Salt Lake Marathon from April of this year. (Pat ourselves on our backs, but way to go B... two marathons in one year, and way to go me... a marathon 3 days before my baby turned one!) When we first signed up we thought we could qualify for the Boston Marathon. Brandon only missed qualifying during Salt Lake by 5 minutes and when I looked at my qualifying time it was quite feasible, so we got crazy and signed up! Training was rough for both of us with kids! We ended up buying the treadmill so I didn't have to push both kids during the week and on our long runs on Saturdays we recruited a lot of help! (Big Thanks to Marilyn, Ange, Kaylee for all sleeping over at our house so we could go out early on Saturday...Thanks to our neighbor Liz for coming over at 6:30am twice (she has four kids of her own! What a rockstar!) Thanks for Nick and Val for letting the kids come over on our last long run, Thanks to Stan and Marilyn for watching our kids when we slept over at your house and at the cabin! And thanks Stan for our water stops at the cabin...again what a rockstar! What amazing friends and family we have!) Well, all the training misery paid off and WE DID IT!Our cheering squad...Tyson and Lily! Tyson made our sign (with B's help) he wrote his own name and outlined it in yellow. He held it up so big as we ran past! Way to go buddy!

Tyson and his camera skills taking a picture of his Nana! Cute!!!

Big shout out to all that came to cheer us on! Thanks Stan, Marilyn and Zak for coming to watch our monkeys for us! Big thanks to Mom and Ange for coming to cheer us on! You all are the best!
Here is Brandon running it in to the finish! Way to go B!

FINISHED!!!
Me running it in! Next to me is Ange. She was so awesome and ran me in the last 3 miles. I would have probably walked if she wasn't there to run with me. She also ran with Brandon for about a 1/2 mile. She helped him a lot too! Thanks Ange!
Both finished! YAHOOOOOO!!
I was already sooooooo sore! (Like the look on my face!) Lucky Tyson got to come into the "runner's only" section and we gave him a Popsicle!
The finishers!

Well, about a month before the marathon we decided that we were even crazy for wanting to do it let alone try to qualify for Boston and run another marathon 6 months later, so we came to the conclusion that even if we did qualify that we WOULDN'T run Boston and just go and visit one day and just be satisfied that we were able to run a qualifying time. Well both of us at about mile 23 or 24 were on track to break our goal time and qualify, but at mile 24 Brandon started to really hit the wall and just before mile 24 I got a huge stomach cramp! But we were both able to finish the race running! Brandon ran it in 3hrs and 13mins and I ran it in 3hrs and 43mins...both of us missed qualifying by 3MINUTES! We were both so excited...no expectation...no second guessing...should we just run Boston?!? We were so close and so excited! Brandon beat his last marathon time by 2minutes and I beat my last time by 1hour and 2minutes! YAHOOO!

Thanks again to all those who came and cheered for us...Mom, Ange, Stan, Marilyn, Zak, Tyson, Lily, Dad (even though we didn't hear or see you...sorry!)Kevin Richardson, Court and Andrea. It was so nice to see friendly faces when you are putting yourself through such agony!

Thanks to all that cheered us on at home!

WE DID IT! (and I will never do a whole marathon again...I can't speak for Brandon!)