My bro’s first 26.2

“Your first marathon teaches you to respect the training” -my husband

This year I was ready! I stuck to my training and even got faster. I suffered through a bout of sesamoiditis (self diagnosed) for about 4 weeks, but I had still gotten in my cardio on different machines at the gym. I was ready this year! But I had a running partner. This was his first marathon. Had he stuck to the runs like I had?
We live in different cities, so we didn’t get to train together. But we did have one good run over Christmas – a 15 miler that we finished in 2:13:09. That’s faster than 9 min/mi pace. And he felt a lot better than I did on that run. I was very excited after that run. We learned that we could run together and push each other. So after Christmas, we went back home to finish the training and meet up in February for the race.
Race day was finally here! I had run my 20 miler in 3:07:03 (with three run-ins with dogs and rolling my ankle around mile 8). I was pretty confident that my brother and I could meet our goal of a sub 4h marathon. We got in the 3:50 pace group early Sunday morning and with the boom of the canon and shots of fireworks, we were off!
Up and down many hills. We didn’t stop for water until around mile 4. At this point we were far ahead of the pace group. We felt awesome. We were joking the whole way. If we got separated I would yell “Marco” and he would respond “Polo” so we could meet back up. We were not finishing this thing separated. We were not running this thing separated. We were a team!
Up and down more hills. Mile 10 (1:25:41), we met several people on our run as we were joking with each other. A man from Vegas listened to us pick on each other for a while. He had run many marathons before this one.
Up and down some more hills. Bro & I bonded as I confessed a little secret to him that will not be mentioned in this blog.
Up and down even more hills. I was surprised at his response when around mile 15 (2:09:32) I asked how he was doing. “Not too good.” I needed to use the port-a-potty, so I ran ahead as he walked to the johns. Déjà vu. Walking doesn’t seem to help. It seems to make all the pain increase to almost unbearable levels. And, in my brother’s case, it made his leg cramps worsen.
We walked/jogged the rest of the race. Our roles seemed reversed this time. Last year he rode his bike and encouraged me to finish, and this time I pushed him to run a little farther. “Let’s get to that stop sign, then we can walk,” I would say. I have to admit, there were times that I hoped he would ask to stop, but I couldn’t let him see that. I needed to be strong for him.
We stopped twice to try to stretch out his hamstrings. It helped a little, but he couldn’t run the rest of the way. If only there was an inhaler for leg cramps! As we turned down the home stretch, we ran to the finish line. My brother held out his hand and we raised our arms to the heavens. The crowd cheered a little louder for us. We did it! We finished together! We hugged after we crossed the finish line & held our own little medal ceremony as I put his around his neck, and he did the same for me. We didn’t finish in under 4 hours; we both did set PR’s though: 4:41:13.
After we were corralled out of the finisher’s area, we hurriedly made our way back to the hotel because it was check-out time.

Training:
M: 4 mi, 33:32
W: 5 mi, 39:34
F: I was a little lazy
S: am (the scheduled run) 5 mi, 42:28; pm (to make up for Fri) 4 mi, 35:54