We Did It!

We are marathoners now!! This morning, Joel and I completed the Honolulu marathon in 5 hours and 6 minutes. There was no way for us to carry a camera with us for this experience so this is the only picture I have...we took this when we got home after we had time to recooperate a little bit so that is why we are smiling so big! It was an awesome experience. The race started at 5am with a fireworks display right after the gun fired. 25,000 people ran this race. I have never experienced anything quite like it. It was a sea of people as far as we could see and it took us 11 minutes just to get to the starting line. We spent the first 6 miles just dodging people but even so, we were completely surrounded for the entire race. We kind of felt like we were in a foreign country because the majority of people who run the Honolulu marathon are Japenese (13ooo of the 25000) so all the signs are in Japenese, the announcements are in Japanese, all the spectators are yelling in Japenese. It was quite odd. There were crazy outfits...Darth Vader, Anime characters, a guy in moonboots and wig, 2 brides and grooms (when I wonder were they getting married?-during the race, after?), guys dressed like women, santa costumes, and a guy wearing a tent....sadly, most of those dressed like that were going faster than us! I even saw an old man's behind because he was wearing a sumo wrestler outfit. We also saw Hideli Okajima (Red Sox pitcher) running the race with his police escort and news camera in his face. We saw him as we ran by him..woo hoo...we finished before a professional athlete! It poured for about the first hour and a half of the race, which wasn't as bad as I thought. It kept us cool but our feet got drenched resulting in a few blisters. We did well until we hit a wall around mile 19 and had to slow up a bit, but still finished right at our goal time of 5 hours. The scenery was beautiful...the ocean and mountains. I wanted to jump in the ocean at the finish line but didn't have the energy to make it there. There were some nice cool showers that we could stand under though that felt just as nice. and the most important thing is we finished together! I really had a great time but Joel says he never ever doing it again. I think I might be hooked on these things now. Now we are having a movie afternoon with the kids while Joel and I nurse our wounds.