Marathon Man

Bill had intended to run his fourth marathon at Disney World in January. Unfortunately, the Army developed other plans. He's scheduled to leave in the middle of what was to be our Disney World week for a couple-week long pre-deployment site survey visit to Afghanistan. Obviously, we were disappointe d by this news, but what can you do? We're hoping to reschedule for either Disney World or Disneyland during Bill's shorter pre-deployment block leave period in March. Anyway, since Bill had trained for the last several months to run a marathon he decided to run the Tucson marathon instead. The marathon was a full month ahead of his training schedule for Disney, but he figured he might as well give it a shot.

A few friends of ours were also doing the race. And since a couple of them were doing the half marathon, Drew and I left our hotel in time to watch them finish. This would leave a couple hours between their finish and Bill's projected finish, however, and I was thrilled to see a playground near the finish line (which was at a local elementary school).

Drew entertained himself for quite some time on the playground equipment and was an altogether very patient little boy as we waited for Daddy to finish.

The Tucson race was much smaller than the previous marathons Bill has completed so we had no trouble finding a viewing spot near the finish line. Drew was on the lookout for Daddy and his blue shirt for quite some time, and properly identified EVERY SINGLE blue shirted person we saw, including the women. "There's a blue shirt, but that's not my Daddy." "There's another blue shirt, but that's a girl. That's not my Daddy."

Finally, we saw the right blue-shirted runner approaching the finish.

Bill with his cactus-shaped finisher medal.

Afterward, we had plans to go to a local brewery restaurant with our friends that had done the race too. Bill said that his primary motivation for the last 8 miles of the race was thinking of the very large alcoholic beverage he'd have at the restaurant. He beat Drew to bed that night and was very relieved to not have to go to work the next morning.

That Bill continues to do these races astonishes me, but also makes me very proud of him. Drew can't wait until he can start racing like Daddy. He just got his first lace-up Nike sneakers and thinks that now because he has running shoes like Daddy he is all set. The morning we left to go up to Tucson the day before the race Drew told Daddy he wanted to run the marathon too. Bill said "Sorry honey. It's very far...too far for Drew." To which Drew responded "But I have my new running shoes!"