October 22, 2006 by jon.

Guess what?  I ran the Chicago Marathon today.

I was a little worried about the weather today, but the Lord gave us some great cool weather and it only rained about 5 minutes.  Then after mile 15 or so, the sun came out a bit.

I did ok.  I taped my name on my jacket so people would cheer me on, but I ran with a friend who was dressed as Wonder Woman.  Only a few called out my name, but that’s ok.  I took my jacket off and gave it to Kala at 15.5 so I could cool down a bit.
Taksina (Wonder Woman) and I ran according to our plan and ran a good race.  We kept at about a 10:00 mile pace through 18 or 19 miles.  We both felt pretty strong but at 19-20 I was getting tired.  By mile 23 I needed to walk a little longer than normal and Taksina couldn’t stop to walk because she was starting to tighten up.  So she took of and our friend Cathi stayed with me.

With Cathi’s prodding on I was able to finish.  I walked probably twice per mile for the last three but I finished.  And actually a good time at 4:39:38.

Kala and the kids saw me at mile 2, mile 15.5 and at the finish.  I think they had a good time getitng around the city and working to figure out where to go next.  While waiting for me to come by, they had a good time cheering everyone on.  Brad made sure to yell everyone’s name that he saw and they were all good encouragers.

So I did my first (Last?) marathon.  It was fun and exciting and I’m glad I did it.  If I were to try it again, I’d need to lose some weight to make it easier on my body.

It was a long summer of training for something that was done in less than 5 hours.
Here is the tally as far as I reckon:

• 2 toenails
• 4 pairs of running shoes
• 12 visits to the chiropracter
• One new GPS watch (Sooo cool)
• LOTS of pain medication
• 1 new reusable ice bag (Using it now)
• 2 other races (Fox Valley 5K with Brad and Bix 7)
• Runs in 5 states (Illinois, Colorado, Iowa, Wisconsin, Maryland)

So was it worth it?  You bet!

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October 22, 2006 by jon.

Brad’s team played the Tigers Saturday at 2:00.  The got in a hole early and were down 9-0 in the third.  They came back a bit in the 4th and were down 10-3.  Then they had a great rally coming back to 10-9 (Runs are capped at 9 per inning or they may have scored more).  Brad led the rally with a rally cap and chanting H-I-T RALLY!  The whole side picked it up and their bats picked up as well.

But theyn the Tigers brought in their closer.  The Rangers were shut down in the last 2 innings with no scoring.  It didn’t really help that we shut them down as well.  Brad ended up being the last batter of the season.  Taking a called strike three (It seemed low to us).

We had some great coaches these past two season and Brad sure learned a lot.  It’s too bad that they won’t be coaching again in the spring.  We’ll miss Coach Bob, Coach Mark, Coach Ken and Coach Steve.

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