What I Really Love About Marathoning

As my regular peeps know, last Sunday's MDI Marathon turned out to be a big disappointment thanks to a left knee that blew out at around mile 12.  I dragged along and finished in my slowest time ever: :4 hours and 45 minutes.  At the time, I was frustrated and had a few moments where I wanted to cry.  But overall, I really don't give a damn.  There will be more marathons and I made an appointment with the highly esteemed local physical therapist who is a runner.  I feel confident the knee will get stronger and I will kick some marathon ass in the spring.  I'm planning on the Vermont City Marathon, 2012.

So I got up early Sunday morning and got ready.  Neil and Pat drove me to Bar Harbor, where the race began.  It was about 20 minutes away from where we were staying in Southwest Harbor, close to the finish line. I was pretty psyched about getting to the municipal bathroom in Bar Harbor because my tummy had gotten a bit nervous.  The bathroom was warm and occupied just enough so that flushing toilets and hand dryers let me relax.  After that I sat in the car with Neil and Patrick.  We saw a sister and her younger brother, close to Harper and Pat's age.  The sister was holding the brother in her lap, hugging him.  Pat said, "I wish Harper would do that with me."  It was so forlorn and sweet.  We continued to chat in the car until Pat burst out, "Now she's playing Patty-cake with him!!"  Sure enough, the siblings were engaged in one of those hand-clapping games.  My little son could hardly believe this other boy's luck; to have a sister that loving, fun and playful!

That's Patrick.  He's dear and sweet and kind and loves when people pay attention to him.  Later we told Harper about what we'd seen and she worked to be that big sister, though in a rougher way.  She loves her brother.  I'm lucky they still want to come to my races, cheer me on and be together.  The four of us took a sweet hike up Flying Mountain the next day.  Here are my favorite folks, not quite playing patty-cake.