Thursday, January 21, 2010

The Marathon- The Witch's Perspective

Marathon day, for me, started at 1 AM. We got a weird phone call. The Warlock sat straight up in bed, "Who's calling us at this hour? It must be an emergency." So I leaped from bed (because I'm not the one who's going to run a marathon the next morning), worried about my pregnant friends, and my parents, and anyone who could possibly need me in the middle of the night, and run for the phone only to discover that the caller hung up. The Warlock, totally excited, couldn't go back to sleep, so he put on a movie, waiting for the moment every alarm clock in the house was set to ring.

Early in the morning our friend, Amy, who trained for the half-marathon met the Warlock so they could drive downtown together.

I got the kids ready as quickly as I could but missed watching the Warlock run at mile 11, as I'd planned. So the kids and I waited for him at mile eighteen.

Pippi was cold.
Bardo was not.
Noel was happy until the snacks disappeared.
I spent time practicing taking pictures of other runners so that when the Warlock arrived I could get some stunning pictures of him. I also saw a woman running and pushing a jogging wheelchair, a marathoner practically ran over her Dad. He would have missed her if she hadn't come right up and placed her headband on his head. I saw groups of runners who looked like they were having a great time. By the time the Warlock came around Noel needed to be held, so I had to take pictures one-handed. I think the Warlock looks too good in this picture to have run 18 miles, don't you?
As soon as we were done doing our ten-second cheer and photo shoot for the Warlock we maneuvered our way through the marathon route to mile 24. We found a sunny patch right outside the Warlock's office building and waited...... and waited ...
and waited. Just when I was sure that Warlock would be coming down the road, guess who had to go potty...After the little break, we did see the Warlcok and cheered.

45 minutes or so later we found the Warlock on the cement in a heap at our meeting place. Noel was especially happy to see that he hadn't eaten all of his banana.
The Warlock was so tired he couldn't even smile. Who knew you exercised your face muscles when running? If you can take your eyes off of his baby blues, you can see salt on his face. Amazing.
Pippi enjoyed supporting him on the walk to his parking garage.
Good times.

And here are more pictures, expensive professional pictures. We were really impressed with the Houston Marathon and their organization, and I think it's pretty special that they were able to take so many pictures of the Warlock living his dream. There are more than this, if you really want to see them you can go to the Houston Marathon website and look them up by his bib number. Or you can email me and I can forward you the email of ALL the pictures.


9 comments:

Jess said...

Way to go Warlock!

Unknown said...

Wow! That one picture of him with the strained running expression makes me want to cry because I remember the end of every 400/800 I have ever ran and I love/ hate/ miss/ don't miss the feeling! I am sure the feeling is 5 billion times more intense with a marathon. Good Job Warlock!

tenacious d said...

Yay Warlock! Impressive!

Unknown said...

You both a had quite a marathon of one kind or another.

Tiffany W. said...

Awesome pics! What a good wife you are to go and support him with all of the kids! And I think he is amazing for finishing (even with a bum knee) and for coming so far in such a short time... but i think he is NUTS to sign up again! ;)

Melissa said...

Way to go! Running a marathon is such an amazing accomplishment, and being a marathoner's biggest fan is no small task either :) Now, you have to watch the movie "Ultramarathon Man: 50 Marathons, 50 States, 50 Days" - you can find it on Netflix.

MT Missy said...

Great pics! What a memorable experience.

Jecca Lee Ivie Johnson said...

That really is something to be very proud of. Awesome!

Pete said...

Very cool. Glad you made it.