Tuesday, February 2, 2010

tues feb 2, 2010 9 months less 1 day til the big 4-0

fatmom and skinnyson cross the finish line part deaux

I am happy to report that I feel much better today than I did yesterday. Unfortunately, this means I will not be able to take any painkillers, but what can you do.

So the reason we were in Miami was not to stalk football players, but to participate in the chai lifeline half marathon. 13.1 miles. My training with Jack consisted of us walking to Fair Lawn over simchat torah (no, it didn't take the whole holiday, only 2 hours)and then two weeks ago, when my dad was in the hospital, we walked 3.5 miles in 1 hour(not my dad, he was in bed...)So I was pretty confident that I was being a horrible mother, did not adequately prepare my son and was going to end up having my children taken away from me. (no such luck-just kidding!)

Jack and I were pretty antisocial for most of the weekend. We didn't go to any of the speeches Friday night..we went to sleep (priorities). Saturday night there was a pre-race pasta party, thought Jack would for sure find something to eat there, but the plain pasta had miniscule and i mean really really miniscule-not even visible to the human eye miniscule, bits of garlic. THE INHUMANITY....so we couldn't stay for the program because we had to get to baskin robbins to get the poor kid a milkshake. (as a result, we missed the announcement that lunch the next day was changed to 1, we came at 2:30 thinking we were being fashionably late, and wondered why there were no cookies left. Well, I wondered why there were no cookies, Jack didn't really care.)

But with all of my cynicism (who me?) when we came down the elevator at 4:20 am to get on the bus for the marathon, and saw a lobby full of people in matching team lifeline race shirts, I did get a little teary. Not only was it people who were blessed with the gift of good health, but kids who were not so fortunate, who were going to participate in the marathon being pushed in their wheelchairs. It was really really inspiring. The team cumulatively raised over a million dollars...and the money is really put to good use.(Keep in mind if i didn't ask you for money this year, we will get to you next year :) That means you, Mr.Austein.....)

So we get to the marathon at 5 am...thousands of people, everyone is pumped up...even Jack was excited...we look at our bibs to see we are in corral L....apparently L is for lazy because it was the last corral...so we snuck into corral K-thank god we weren't caught or it would have been embarrassing....long story short...we finished-we rocked it. We thought it would take us 4 hours, but it only took Jack 3 hours and 20 minutes, and me 3 hours and 24 minutes. Why did it take me longer? Well, my son, my first born, the light of my life, decided that after 12 miles of me making him laugh and taking his mind off of how long the walk was...making sure he had water....giving him the strength to continue by chanting the words of our esteemed president who we didnt vote for "yes we can"....the kid left me to run ahead. Nice, real nice...visions of us crossing the finish line together vanished into thin air like a puff of smoke...didn't think I smelled that bad...I did get over it. I was so proud of that kid. Still don't know how those skinny legs held him up :)

What a great experience....so happy we did it. So happy it is over.

Happy Tuesday....

No comments:

Post a Comment