26.2 And Lived To Tell The Tale

Meet the four courageous souls who decided to tackle the Cowtown Marathon 2009. Daniel, Natalie, Caroline and Kellianne. I did this race three years ago and was going to run it with them this year but had a knee injury setback. Instead, I went with my Mom, Dad and younger brother Michael to cheer our hearts out. This is the pack right before the race. I gave them all the advice I could, but in the end, there's no understanding until you do it.

As it unfolded in the day, these four were fast and hard to track. We felt a bit like cops chasing convicts. Speeding, taking side roads trying to cut them off, communicating by walkie talkies (cell phones)..."do you have the subjects in sight?" Stuff like that.

Mile 19 still looking good and strong.

Dan and Natalie at 19.

Kellianne at 7.

This was mile seven and we were lucky to catch them here. The purple tags are the half marathoners and the yellow are the full. We got ourselves trapped down on the race course where the half-ers break away from the full course. Before we knew what had happened we were cut off by a sea of purple and couldn't seem to get back to the kids till mile 16. They were also a bit too fast. I informed them that if they had wanted better pictures they needed to have slowed down! We got GREAT pictures at my race. I'm just saying.

When I ran the race a few years ago, my family was there following and cheering me on. Daniel would always be yelling out ridiculous sentiments of encouragement. About mile 13 he shouted, "Melanie! Take your pain, put it in an envelope and mail it to the finish line!" I'll tell you, I rarely ever get a chance to wax poetic. Sarcastic, Sardonic, all the time. Poetic? Hardly at all. You better believe I loved telling him to mail his pain to the finish line around mile 16. Sorry about the yelling and screaming in the following video we captured around mile 16. It's a tad obnoxious.



There are few things more emotional than running that final stretch of a Marathon. There are so many elements of the race that test the conditions of the human spirit. Hundreds of miles run during months of training. The highs and lows of strengthening and pushing not only your body, but your mind and spirit. Everything culminates into this perfect storm of excitement, anxiety, adrenaline, hope, despair, and finally accomplishment. To hear people screaming for you at the end that you did it, you really did it. Well. There are just few moments like it.


Here's our crew flying up to the finish line.

I know I am looking a little gangster here. If you weren't running, then it was VERY COLD! Grabbing Rhett's BYU sweatshirt at the last minute was a great choice. Turns out alot of BYU fans ran the race. "GO BYU!" I ended up being very popular.

When the high wears off you think: Holy cow I just ran 26 miles. I'm hungry and really need a nap.