Remember how I was making fun of people who like to run? Turns out, I was bad mouthing my own family. When we had our new family holiday "Bonfire on Bahnfyre" in St. Louis last month, six of the family ran a 1/2 marathon. ON THEIR VACATION. And it costs money! Okay I still think they are loony, even if they are kin.
Evan and I took the carefully marked map with the three cheering rendezvous points at which we were to meet the other non runners (namely the injured, grandparents, small children, nursing mommy, and
us ) and proceeded to get very lost in downtown St. Louis, finding all of the blocked off roads and missing the first two meet ups. We only made it to the third because it was the finish line, and of course we missed the gazelles that are Matthew, Leigh, Corey, Norma and Andrew, but thankfully got to howl GO NEIL GO to uncle (his first race and he was only 20 min behind his nieces and nephews!)
I was surprised at the feeling I got being around all of these ultra healthy fast people. Something like a mix of inspiration, awe, and incredulity. It almost made me want to try it next year. Almost. I shook that feeling off quickly.
It was nice to be related to the bad-assedest ones in the bunch too! Leigh finished in the top 10 and Matthew and Corey finished in the top 15 of like, ten million*. I asked them what they craved after such a monumental expenditure of energy, imagining they would say something like fruit and steak, but it was...
beer. God bless 'em, their cut calves and wild pastimes.
*
Leigh placed number 10 overall among all the women. Cory, Matthew and Andrew were #36, 37, and 41 respectively. Neil and Norma finished very close to the two hour mark. Neil ran cross country in high school, and has run a 5K (3.1 miles) fairly recently, but this was a big achievement for him at age 57! -thanks Mombie J
