We just returned last night from San Diego where Russ and our brother-in-law Matt ran in the San Diego Marathon. We were so proud of them-- how many people can say that they ran 26.2 miles straight!? I'm sure not anywhere close to accomplishing that. Rebecca and I have a goal now to run the Disneyland half marathon next fall (the boys will be almost a year by then).
We were able to do some fun stuff on the trip too. We drove straight to the race expo to get the boys their shirts and racing bibs. They had tons of booths set up with free give aways. Russ ran into a guy named Darius that he went to high school with. Small world! Later that afternoon we headed out to the San Diego zoo to look at all the animals. What a nice zoo! If you have never been to the zoo with Russ, let's just say you're missing out. This guy loves animals, especially birds! Some of our favorites were the monkeys, the eagles, and the peacock. The next day we went to the animal park because someone told us you could ride around the park on a tram. We were mislead! There was a tram all the way at the back of the park that only took you on a 25 minute ride. The boys were not supposed to do any activity the day before the marathon so we quickly left. It was overcast and in the 60's for our entire trip but I was bound and determined to get a couple of pictures at the ocean. We met up with a childhood friend, Johnny for dinner that evening. The boys were so funny about meticulously choosing their last meal before the marathon. I'm sure Johnny that we were such a fun group.... 2 pregger ladies and 2 guys who wouldn't drink anything, ate very small portions, and had to get to bed early.
The next morning we were up at 4:15am getting the guys ready for the big race. The guys headed to the starting line and Rebecca and I started our adventure to find mile marker 12. Note, if you ever go to watch someone in a marathon, only plan on meeting them at a couple of places. There were about 20,000 people participating in this marathon. It was really neat just to be a spectator. People were waving their countries flag (USA, South Africa, and Great Britain just to name a few). The elite athletes were just AMAZING! They looked like gazelles (most of them finished in 3 hours or less). We found our guys at mile 12 and cheered them on. We ran quickly ahead of them so we were sure to get pictures. Rebecca and I quickly headed to the finish line on the Marine Base after that. It was so crowded! We pushed our way to the front and leaned on the bar to watch people cross the finish line. It was truly a site to be seen! People were puking, being carried across the finish line by the medical teams, crying tears of pain and joy, people getting proposed to (the guy next to us was going to propose to his girlfriend when she finished the marathon), a naked guy, and some people that ran the race barefoot to make statements for 3rd world countries. Our guys finished right around 5 hours. We were so proud of them! How many people have to strength, endurance, dedication, and heart to accomplish something as big as this!? Spectators in the crowd would ask us where we were from and what group our hubands trained with. They couldn't believe how far we came and that the buys trained on their own. We already knew they were amazing but this helped solidify this thought.
Matt and Russ ate almost everything they saw that night (and rightfully so since they burned over 3,500 calories)! We met up with Johnny and his girlfriend again for a celebration dinner at the Rock Bottom Brewery. We ate some yummy chocolate treats at Ghiridelli's after that.
It was truly a trip of a lifetime!
