After a whole mess of running last year, I decided to take some time off to let my mind and body recover from all of the wear and tear of the roughly 520 miles I put it through.  I still need to be active somehow, and I'm enjoying (I guess?) my winter P90X2 regimen that is coming to a close in the next few weeks.  From there, it will hopefully be some time on the bike, the wife having another baby (yikes!), and then another training plan for NYC in November (barring natural disasters).

Over St. Patty's weekend, a small crew went down to Wrightsville Beach to watch my running buddies Coach and C-Nix run a marathon.  This will be a painfully obvious statement to most of you, but even as a two-time marathon veteran (Big Sur and Charlotte Thunder Road, what-what!) it's an observation that I wasn't able to make until the race was done Sunday afternoon - I can now confirm that watching a marathon is infinitely more enjoyable than running one.

I feel largely responsible for suckering encouraging these guys to start distance running, so I thought it only fitting to give them my support for the big race day.  My goal was really to give people a laugh, as I remember how much I always need something to laugh about when I'd been running for 4+ hours.  Here's a brief recap, with photo evidence below:

  1. Set alarm for 5:15, greet runners, give sleepy pep talk, blast Eye of the Tiger through my iPhone's speaker
  2. Get coffee
  3. Get pre-made signs, Ginger, Amy and Elle to take up our cheering spots (the race ran by our rental house twice)
  4. Hold signs, cheer sorta quietly (it's still 6:30 and dark at this point) until our peeps go by, get some chuckles from the non-serious runners.
  5. Shower
  6. More coffee
  7. Get in costume, grab cowbell and start cheering (loudly this time) the marathoners who are making it to mile 13.
  8. Get into cars, drive to mile 25 on the course, resume signage and cheering (and galloping)
  9. Meet our peeps at the finish to congratulate a job well done.
  10. Celebrate (it was St. Patty's after all)
And the highlights in pictures:
1

3a

3b

7a

7b

7c

8a

8b

8c

9 (who was I to ask them to move to better lighting after running 26.2?)

10

All in all, a very fun weekend (says the guy who didn't run a bit).  Hats off to my guys and to all the other runners on a job well done, and while I'm not ready to start running again just yet, the race did spark a little fire in my gut.

We did some other fun stuff on the trip, so look out for a second post with some details and other updates from TT!