Grandma's Marathon

Well, it has been one month since Grandma's Marathon and the blisters on my toes are almost gone. The race was actually a lot of fun! I ran with my two brothers, Joel (who had run this race three times already) and Phil (who ran this race after a 22 year running hiatus). Joel decided that for our benefit, he would run the first one-quarter mile with Phil and I, then he had to go catch the leaders. He predictably finished as the first Bratsch brother. Phil and I ran together for the first 8 miles or so. Then he was having dizzy spells and told me to go ahead. Like a good brother I left him behind.

The first 15 miles weren't that bad. After that I had to walk occasionally. It helped to have a great fan club cheering me on!

At about mile 22, there was good news and bad news. The good news: some grocery store workers were handing out the best tasting strawberries I ever had in my life! The bad news: a warm feeling shot through my calf muscle and then I felt excruciating pain in my knee. It got a little better, but I had to run/walk/limp the rest of the way in.

I finished in a time of 5:08. That's five hours, eight minutes. I hoped to go under 5 hours, but for my first marathon I'm just glad I finished and beat Phil. (He did awesome, by the way, for hating running with every bit of his being! He was only about 20 minutes behind me.)

After the race, we loaded up on free food and then enjoyed the stinkiest car ride of our lives as the three of us drove back to our hotel.

So here is the latest news. I have tentative plans to run another marathon. Barring any unforeseen problems, I may be running the 2008 Denver Marathon. My friend Benjer and I are going to start training for it and we'll be running a 5k or 10k and a couple half marathons to prepare. Joel might run with us too (maybe?) but Phil won't even talk to me when I mention anything about marathons.