the marathon

Yesterday Miles ran the Atlanta marathon. He did great. We were very proud of him. Here he is about 15 minutes after he finished.....holding Hudson who had just fallen asleep in my arms. We stayed at the Omni hotel at the CNN center b/c it was right where the race started. This is a picture of the finish line taken from our hotel room.

This next picture is Miles crossing the finish line....if you look closely you see him in the middle of the picture.....and his time on the clock is about 3 hours 39 minutes.....which i think is great for a first marathon.

So, here's how the day went.....it took some planning and coordinating to get where we wanted to be at the right times....Miles woke up at about 5 to eat some bananas and power bars and then went back to sleep. He was in a hotel room with Camryn and Sadie. I was in another room with my mom and Hudson. I came over to his room at about 6:15 and we got dressed. Then my mom and Hudson came over to stay with the girls b/c they were still sleeping, so Miles and I could go down the start line which was right outside our hotel room window. I took this picture of Miles before the race started at 7:04 a.m. About 15,000 people ran either the marathon or the half.

After he started running, i went back up and we woke up the girls. After almost an hour of getting everyone up, dressed and searching all the rooms for everyones shoes and coats, we headed out to get on the Marta to find Miles running. We had amazing luck as we got where we needed to go at just the right time.....a couple of minutes later and we would have missed him. Here's a picture of me running with him for a couple of blocks at Mile 11......

and again.....at mile 13....after that, we went back to the hotel to give the kids a break, and I went back out to Mile 23 by myself but forgot to take a picture there. I had told him we wouldn't see him again until the finish line, so he was surprised to see me. I ran up a hill with him there, then I turned around and ran back to the Marta as fast as I could to try to beat him to the finish line. I missed a train, so I didn't make it back in time, but my mom, brother, nephew, and Camryn, Sadie and Hudson were there. They yelled loud, but he didn't see them anyways. I guess he was in pain and just trying to put one foot in front of another. Here's another picture taken from out hotel room.I kinda feel like I ran a marathon myself after all that running around the city finding him....up and down stairs for the Marta, etc. I'm actually sore today from all of that. But there's nothing like watching someone run a marathon. It's fascinating to see so many different people running and I get tears in my eyes everytime I see the guys in wheel chairs and the guys who win the race. They are absolutely amazing.....