I guess I can get pregnant now?

You know, down the road a ways... all I am saying is that I am allowed to because I did my "run a marathon in between each kid" goal. 

This marathon was... interesting. It was in Maryville, MO, about an hour and a half north of where I live. I picked it because it was the only marathon in Missouri until October. I guess they don't condone dying of heat exhaustion in this great state, hence no Summer races. I didn't want to train during the Summer because its just plain horrible, so Maryville it was.

I made Amy do it with me again. She is more loyal than Lassie. The day before the race, she fell off of a horse and practically busted her arm. It was a bloody mess, but she still wanted to run it anyway. See, that's as loyal as it gets.

Amy and I ran our long Saturday runs together. I have lots of juicy information about her because of this, but I can't tell anyone because she has some on me too. That is just what you do when you run with someone for 3 hours straight. It is almost like getting drunk, you lose your inhibitions. I better stay on her good side.

Travis had to work the night shift that night, so he couldn't make it. I was sad, it was his first race ever not being there.

Race Day:

Woke up at 4 am

Amy, her fiance, Hyrum and his friend, Scotty arrived at 4:07 am

We drove to Maryville

The sun came up

We picked up our race packet at 6 am

We got ready. Stretched, went potty, took pictures, etc

6:30 am the race starts, but Milli and Amy were still in the bathroom trying to "be as light as possible."

At 6:31 am Milli and Amy started the race, the last 2 people to start.

This race was tiny compared to Kansas City marathon (200 total, but only about 40  marathoners). And no one really cared that we were running. There were no bands, or fans. It was weird. 

Also, it was a 13.1 mile loop, so I had to run it 2 times, and 10 miles of that loop was on highway 71, so if you are good at math, I ran about 20 miles on an up and down highway in the middle of nowhere.

At least I was with Amy, until I suddenly got this burst of energy on mile 9 and ditched her. She told me to, and I almost didn't, but then I did. No Lassie here I guess.

And of course, I didn't pack an ipod or anything. In the past marathons I have ran, it was OK not running with music because there were always a bunch of people around to talk to and make friends with. This marathon was different. I would have killed for some tunes. They had drink stops every mile and a half, but in between, sometimes I never saw a soul. If I fainted,  would anyone even have noticed? 

I wish I had a recorder of all the random things my mind was thinking. And I couldn't get "moves like Jagger" out of my head.

I was pretty bored, until I met John.

I noticed John from about mile 14, I was about 100 yards behind him. I noticed this huge 14 passenger van that kept stopping where John was, and a bunch of kids would get out and run with him, then they would pack up, get back in the van and circle around again. Sometimes his fans would stay in the van and cheer, and sometimes they would get out and give him five.

When I caught up to him, we chatted for a minute. I told him how cool it was that he had such a good support team, and he asked me what my name was. I told him, and then got that burst of energy and took off (I'm a glutton I guess). Anyway, when I saw the van circle around again, I looked over, and there were about 8 kids in there yelling my name! His fans became my fans. I saw them about 9 more times during the race and felt like a million bucks every time. What a cool wife John had, lugging around 8 kids for 3 and a half hours so they could cheer for their dad and a random sweaty girl named Milli.

I remember mile 21 the most. It sucked. It was on the last stretch of the highway before we finally got to run on something different, and it was all uphill. My feet were not too happy with me.

I finally got to the end of the race, and there were about 4 people cheering. It was awesome. I finished the race, grabbed an orange, took my shoes off and just sat for awhile. Then a guy walked up to me and told me I was the first female to finish. I looked at my time, and it was 3 hours and 38 minutes, about 90 seconds off my best time and then I thought, who the crap wins a marathon with that time? 

The Kenyans and professionals must not have heard of the Maryville marathon, because they would have rocked it. But I take what I can get, and what I got was 600 bucks! I had no idea this would happen! I even got interviewed by their local paper. You can look here for that, they pretty much said that the male winner's wife wasn't trying very hard because she had run a marathon a week ago, and she would have killed me if she was trying. Ha!

Amy finished about 20 minutes behind me, winning second place for the women and 300 bucks! 

A couple of things I learned from this marathon:

1) Bring your Ipod no matter what your plans are during a marathon

2) Its a lot more fun when your love is at the end of the race cheering you on.

3) Bring Gu to small town races, I almost picked a used one up on the ground and licked it during mile 21. 

4) During the drink stops, drink the gatorade and pour the water on self, don't vice versa that one.

and 5) don't ever make physical goals for yourself when you are 22, I want to punch that 22-year-old in the face.

Here is some proof

Amy and I before the race

Her poor arm

Hyrum, her fiance'

This was when the race started, and we were on the potty

This was a drink station on highway 71, just look how awesome the ground was we were running on!

Scotty, my date

After the race

 

Accomplishments

Travis had to do a little research for his residency and then present the research... science fair style. You know with the huge poster board

I never saw him working on it

I never really saw him thinking about it

I didn't really think much about it when he told me what he was doing that day, presenting his research

Then he came home

With this bad boy

See it?

Yeah, he took 1st place in the "science fair."

They not only gave him that sweet ribbon, but they gave him this

100 dollar gift card to the downtown plaza

I was extra happy about that

Good job Travis! He is just born with the natural smarts. I think there are two types in the world. The type who are naturally smart and don't have to work too hard and the type that are not very smart and have to work their butts off. Travis is the first type, I am the second type. I know this because we both took psychology in college together, and he hardly looked at his book and got an A. I looked at my book a lot more, and I got a B-. 

Whatev.

Speaking of accomplishments, this was mine this weekend

Oh, I guess that doesn't really tell you

Well if you would look closely, you would see that I have a running medal on. I ran my very first real 1/2 marathon

It was an accident

I'm training for a marathon, and my good friend Sarah had signed up for this 1/2 marathon and realized she wasn't ready to run it. 

She told me to represent her and run the race instead. Since I was supposed to run that distance anyway for my training, I gladly accepted.

It was hard 

I barfed when I got home

It was tougher than a full marathon because I got cocky and thought that 13.1 miles was nothing compared to what I was going to have to run and I ran without pacing myself

And let me tell you, I paid for it!

Stinkin' pride

Another fun accomplishment that happened in the Charles family was that Avery graduated from preschool

She was ecstatic

She won the award for "most expressive"

As we were explaining the award to the crowd, she interrupted me and ran over to one of the Dad's and asked, "why do you have a shaved head?"

It was epic

I'm proud of my little Avery 

Happy Days preschool was a good time

She only has 2 more years of preschool :)

And finally, the last great accomplishment of the week was by Brooklyn

I looked out the window and saw her playing in the sandbox

And when I looked more closely, this is what I saw

It was a great weekend of success for all of us