Marathon Weekend.. a real one

On Oct. 5th, Ryan ran the Portland Marathon. Its part of his mid-life crisis.. err, I mean training. No really, we are really really proud of him. Its amazing that he got the fitness bug in the Spring, and since then has done at least 3 Triathlons, and got the courage to cap it all off with training for the Portland Marathon.

It was a really exciting weekend. We all stayed downtown in a nearby hotel- HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. Portland does a great job of blocking off streets and generally making it a really fun event.
The Portland Marathon has several other associated events- a 5K, a walking marathon, a 10K and a "Kids Marathon" that was about 2 miles long.

So, as Ryan took off for the marathon, the kids and I got ready to run our run. It was really fun. There were a good number of parents and kids out to get into the event.

I had some serious worry that I would lose Grant- because he can run faster than me- so I had to come up with a way to tie him down. I couldn't find anything besides harnesses for kids- which they were not willing to wear. So I had an epiphany and made my own- Which by the way, I got A LOT of compliments on my ingenuity!!!

Here is what I did- I created this great key ring idea to attach my kids- both kids wore a ring around their arm, and I wore one on my arm- Then, there is a retractable key device in the middle- this allowed the kids to have some "room".

In the next post, there are some more crazy photos from the start of our race- notice how I cut off the Quik Rabbit's head in the photo- The before picture is where Grant is grouchy- looking like he's taking a mug shot- then afterwards, they are thrilled because there is free food everywhere- including chocolate milk, juice, cookies.

I wanted to pop the stupid balloons- some brilliant person decided to hand those out to kids BEFORE the race- so try running with both of them attached via the key ring device with balloons popping in your face constantly- no wonder we were last.