MARATHON 11!

There were some new experiences this year and a lot of things about this marathon that were the same as all the others, and we love the sameness of it. The tradition of standing in the street for hours cheering for strangers and slapping their sweaty hands to pass on our energy to them, until our loved ones come by and we attempt to meet them down at the finish line.

Mandy, Charles, Brian, and Joel passed before Kyle- so those are the pictures I have! (Jon and Crystal too but I missed them)

  Mason (new to this tradition last year, but now a permanent addition), the Beckstrands and the Pages staying at the cabin with us is a tradition, but new this year was Spencer.  It was his first time and he was pretty nervous.  He said at one point, "Why is everyone acting so happy?  Why can't they be just a little nervous."  Charles hasn't done it for a few years, and a few weekends before the marathon they were down to see Hairspray at Tuacahn and Charles kind of jokingly said, if you find me a number.....CUT TO....  All the Rogels came and it made it a party!  It also enabled me to be able to be the driver of the runners and stay at the cabin.  That was a new tradition, in 10 years I have never been able to stay, but since Paula was staying at my house and was willing to take my kids back with her, I got to stay the night and experience the anxiety and medical triage (Spencer) of 5 a.m. at the cabin. 

how embarrassing, I have pooh on my feet :)- notice Spencer letting off some steam...

Unfortunately, I didn't know that they had posted that the road would be closed at 6:00 instead of 6:30 a.m. this year, and when I tried to get on the road at 6:25 after dropping the runners off at the starting line, a very gruff cop wasn't going to let me come home.  He told me to wait for a minute and while I was contemplating how long it would take to wait for 7000 runners to clear the road enough for me to go north to Enterprise and then through Cedar City to get home and whether or not I would have enough gas......he came back and said "Next year plan better," but that I could follow the last bus down the hill that was passing right then.  OH the anxiety.....probably matched that of Spencer's for that moment. I got home and we got breakfast and got the kids going and headed up to Janice's corner.  We have always parked at the corner of Hope St. and Diagonal- kind of accidentally the first year....years ago....and then I realized we were at Shana's parents house and it is kind of nice to have a friendly potty so close, so that tradition stuck.

 We yelled at and slapped strangers and friends for an hour and a half or so and then after Kyle passed we jumped in the van.  At that point we usually have about 20 minutes to find a parking spot and get to the bleachers and cheer for him as he crosses the finish line.

No shirt was something new, as was the chaffing problem that caused the shirt to come off....ouch!

  This year we did just that, and Joel had just finished and so I figured we had about 5 minutes til we saw Kyle, (because Joel passed us about 8 minutes before Kyle, but he was moving slowly due to an uncooperative hamstring) so we waited and waited and waited for about 15 minutes and then Penny called me from the finishers corral and said "JoEllen, Kyle passed out, come!" OH the anxiety!  Much higher than Spencer's at this point.  I started yelling at the kids to stay close and follow me and we ran to the medical tent but he wasn't in there, so I called Penny back and could hear Kyle's voice in the background.  She told me where they were and we found Kyle upright and in good spirits.  Then I started yelling at him!  I instantly knew that he had sprinted home and pushed himself too far.  He just said, "I really wanted to beat 4 hours."  A long held tradition is my fear for the last 10 years that he would keel over from a heart attack during a marathon, but he just smiled and told me he was fine. 

Love this picture, love this man more today than 10 marathons ago.

Once I knew he was alright I was just mad I didn't have a picture of him collapsing into strangers hands and being carried off.  No one has a picture of him at the finish line because no one expected him to be able to shave so much time off the last 2 miles of a 26 mile race, so we all missed it.  

AND, he missed 4 hours too....but only by 35 seconds!  

The kids favorite part of this tradition is the ice cream treats dad passes over the fence to them!

I was very proud of him, he has worked so hard and is physically and emotionally healthier than he has been in a long time, a tradition that I hope continues.