This is not my race to recap. BUT, I can’t help myself and want to write a few things.
I am so incredibly proud of my husband- on Saturday he ran the Indianapolis Monumental Marathon in 2:49:05.
I’m so proud of the very smart race he ran. We talked about it in detail about how he would take the first 10K to really warm up. Still when I got my update that his expected finish time was 2:50, I worried he didn’t feel good- even though this was the plan. Especially on a windy day like it was. Then I got his half marathon split and his expected finish time was 2:51 and I got more nervous. Knowing the ultimate goal was to break 2:50, I’m thinking you’re starting to work on a 2 minute negative split here you’re gonna have to pull off.
BUT, I saw him at mile 16.6 and he was looking strong and happy and ready to race. I told him he had one 9 mile run to get things done and to go do it.
His 30K split update was back to an expected  2:50 finish time. But we all know 8 miles at the end of a marathon is a long way to keep that up. I had no idea how he was feeling but I was hopeful.
I patiently anxiously waited at the last quarter mile and there he was. Clock time was around 2:47 and I knew he had it locked in. WHEW. He was there and he was doing it. AND he was WORKING. Running in his last mile to be his fastest of the day I believe. (I’ll let him break down his splits on his actual race recap if I can convince him to write it!)
It’s that moment when you are so excited you can’t stand it and you want to share every bit of the accomplishment with the person you love.
It’s funny looking back to where you started. You think you are destined to to be a certain kind of runner. Glenn finished his first marathon in 3:49:38. It was one and done until I committed to running a second marathon- so he committed to run a second as well- running a 3:57:58. Whomp, Whomp.
We both had ugly second marathons. At this point, we didn’t really think even a BQ was something in his cards-let alone shooting for times like he ran on Saturday.
What we don’t realize back then in the beginning is the importance of experience, proper training and just as importantly believing you can accomplish a goal bigger than you ever imagined.
Over the years, we’ve learned a lot-Â about ourselves, about running, Â coaching and about pursuing big dreams.
When we spectated in Chicago a few weeks ago, I eyed the girls running in packs where I envision myself running next fall and got excited, thinking I CAN do this.
This Saturday was a bit different. The 3:05 pace group ran by as I very pregnantly (is that a word?) slothed at mile 10 taking pictures with a giant iPad and I thought, holy crap, do I really think I can do that? It doesn’t really look fun. Those people look kind of cold. They look like they are running really fast, and they still have 16 miles to go. What’s wrong with me for wanting to do that.
Thankfully, I’ve done this before though. What seems impossible now, 7 months pregnant will feel possible later.
And for now, I will continue to celebrate the successes of Glenn and many of our friends who accomplished BIG goal on Saturday. We had a ton of athletes we coached and or wrote training plans for who PRed big time- including two BQs, which makes me incredibly happy. Melissa Delong ran her very first marathon and a lot of big accomplishments and PRs with the Indy Women’s Training Program ladies I coach. My inner running dork was just way to excited to handle all the goodness this weekend.
Congratulations to EVERYONE. 🙂 And of course Kudos to Monumental Marathon for putting on an excellent event.
 PS- did you see the awesome signs I put in our front yard for people doing the Half?
 Did you race Monumental? NYC?
Run it for fun?
HOW WAS IT?Â