In honor of my awesome husband and his first marathon

Saturday, April 19, 2008 Brian handbiked the Salt Lake marathon. He hasn’t been training real regularly and was not going to enter the race when I told him he should just go for it. So two days before the race he signed up and then the craziness began. The Friday night before the race we did not go to bed until 2:00 am trying to get things ready. We then got up Saturday morning at 4:30 am to get him out the door in time. Brian then left and I slept for an hour and then had to get the kids up to go see him finish at the Gateway. The kids and I ran out of here at 8:45 am hopeing to make it in time to see him finishing. I tried my hardest to obey all the traffic laws but I have to admit it wasn’t very easy. We then arrived at the gateway parking garage to drive around wondering if we were going to find a spot to park. I did not have any idea how large of a scale this race was. (I should have thought things through a little better but hey things happened really fast and there was not much time for thinking). So after 5 minutes of driving around we found a spot and began to run through the parking garage. We then reached the door and walked outside and saw all the hundreds of hundreds of people everywhere and that is when it hit me and I was not sure what I was going to do. I had no idea where the start or the finish line was and where I was suppose to meet Brian. We really didn’t talk about it. I was trying to carry a carrier with Ashlynn in it and keep Austin and Brooklynn with me, to say the least it was nuts. I think people at least thought I was nuts, because I had to keep yelling at my kids to stay with me because it was so noisy they couldn’t hear me. We then made it to the end of the race where there was actually a way to see the people coming in through the gate and then I realized that the wind was blowing so hard that it was blowing Brooklynn over. It was quite funny. I was glad at this point that my dad was going to be meeting up with us and we found my dad fairly easily with all the people, noise, and wind. And then the wait began. And we waited and we waited and we waited. The longer we were in the wind the more agitated the kids became, lucky for me Ashlynn went to sleep and I began to wonder when this all was going to end for the kids sake. I began checking my phone every five minutes for the time. And then it hit me and I started to worry that I might have killed my husband by pushing him to do this. (Brian played Wheelchair Rugby for years but not recently and has been hand biking on and off for the last few months but he has never done anything like a marathon). Brian thought he could finish the race in 2 to 2 ½ hours and it had almost been 3 hours. So now what to do? There was really nothing I could do, I figured if Brian could not make it he had his cell phone so he should have been able to call. I was just praying he would come in soon because there was not much else I could do. Then a little after 3 hours he finally came in to view, I don’t think I have been that happy to see him I was so relived. And amazingly he looked great; he had come home in the past from handbike workouts looking more warn out than he did. After a few seconds of talking to him we found out that the hand grips that he wears to help him turn the crank on the bike had busted (one at the half way mark and the other just before he crossed the finish line. I am not really sure how he did it. He had to push and pull the crank at times because that was all he could do. Because this happened it added almost another hour to his time and that was why he was later than he had expected. When I thought about it afterward I was glad that he added an extra hour to his time or we might not have been able to see him finish, we probably would have been too late. Unfortunately, this has now started Brian thinking that he needs to enter as many marathons as he can. What did I do to myself? Oh well it is good for him and it will be fun to see how he does in the next few marathons. So I guess we will be spending some time this summer doing marathons. He is planning on the Ogden Marathon in a few weeks (if he can get his hand grips fixed in time) and the St. George Marathon in October and I am sure he will add a few more in there along the way. We are so proud of you! Way to go Dad!