Marathons and sprint writing

Well, I am sure most of you heard about James. I can officially say that I am married to a marathoner now. He ran his first marathon and it was brutal. The weather was the hottest it had ever been since they started the race 10 years ago (right after the OKC bombing). It was in the mid 70's and it the wind was blowing anywhere from 20-30 miles an hour. It was brutal. The previous high temperature was only 53 last year.

The race started at 630am and there were 20K people downtown. 19K were running one of the races. His race took almost 15 minutes for all the runners to cross the start line. It was an incredible sight. I, being the sweet weenie that I am, ran/walked the 5k at 645am. It took me a whole 43 minutes to cross my finish line, at which time, I walked town to the memorial and took in the awe of it. If you haven't had the chance to go, you should. It is beautiful and you can sense the presence of God in it.

After that, about 8ish, I walked back up to about a 2 and a half blocks before the finsih line and waited. And waited. And waited. Oh, and waited. I finally saw James' friend, Robert, who was doing the half marathon and ran down the 2 blocks to catch up with him and show him where I was. His wife was doing her first marathon too. So then we waited. And waited. And waited some more. (Long day of waiting ever.) By this time, James other friend who was running the marathon, Raj, well his brother had come with us too. He finally made it to where we were so it was Robert, Suresh and myself now. Waiting.

I got a phone call at 1020am from a 405 number. I normally don't answer numbers I don't recognize, but it hit me, it might be one of the medical tents calling about James, so I answered it. It was James. He was way behind schedule due to running into the 30 mile an hour wind and he was only at mile 22. We all did the math and figured it be another 40 or so minutes. So we waited. And waited. Finally, at 1110am, 4 hours and 40 minutes after the start, we saw James. I was so excited I almost cried. I ran out and he ran over to me and gave me a big sweaty kiss! (he was really sweaty!) An hour or so after that, Roberts wife finished hers and about 45 minutes or so after that, Raj finished. He was hurting bad, but he finished. He is really tall and was already having some knee issues prior to that, but he finished! Yea!

So it was a long day, but it was well worth it and I am now offically married to a marathoner. yea!!! Oh and we checked the times on the internet last night and James finished in the top half of marathoners. The average finish time was 4 hours and 51 minutes. Last year, with the temperature at 53, the average finish was 4 hours 30 minutes, so you can see how much weather plays a part in a person's ability to perform. He did pretty darn good for a first timer huh???

ps....no pictures are attached because James did not want his misery kept forever on camera. :-)

So, Sprint writing. Awhile back, I entered a 24 hour writing contest for Saturday. The way it works was you get a topic and word count at 12n on Saturday and have 24 hours to turn it in. I didn't get the topic till about 2pm due to wifi issues and we were in the car on our way to OKC. (I was getting carsick trying to type.) When we got to the hotel, I spent about an hour or so writing my 900 word story during the Mavs game. We went to dinner, then got back about 830p. I spent about 45 minutes editing it and turned it in. Whew...what a Saturday that was... I should find out how I did in a month or so. The contest was limited to 500 writers and they are giving out 85 prizes, so hopefully, I will win something. Wish me luck. Also, the silent character contest I entered on the 15Apr, well I should find out on 4May if I won or not.

Until we read again...
wt