As we were sitting in the corral, or standing in the corral, getting ready to go on the
5K, he said, next year, next year for my 40th, I'm going to run this marathon.
He's really going to do it, he's really going to give it a shot, and follow through with
the goal that he set out doing.
I trained for 6 months, I've never worked any harder for anything.
I spent countless hours out running the roads by myself, you know, only at one point in
the training exercise did I really do a long run with anybody, this was all me, and I went
through just me doing this, it's something I really wanted to do, it was one I needed
to accomplish for me, I'm turning 40, you know, 40 year old man, I can run a marathon.
I had to put some glide, Vaseline type material on the bottom of my feet, and make sure I
got the right socks and my compression hose stuff over my calves.
And in fact, one of the women in the corral with them said, you can do the half marathon
first, and he said, no, I'm going to run this marathon next year, and she kind of liked
it, she's like, well you need to do a half.
So as it turns out, one year later, he's here running the marathon.
So we're very proud of him, all of us look at him, it's a big inspiration, he's had a
difficult year, and it has, I've been glad that he's had eight.
He could have quit easy, real easy, you know, and said that I just, he didn't have the time.
But you know, it wasn't just family, he has immediate family, I mean, the crazy part about
all of this, I mean, all of this, is that his mom and his dad were going through a heck
of a time, his mom had gotten sick.
She was fighting cancer, lung cancer.
Pride, that's proud.
I thought of mom.
And her new daddy did too, she would have liked to have seen that.
It was five lanes wide of people, just solid mass, it looked like a bunch of ants cruising
along, and I couldn't see the front, it's a good God, and I stopped and turned around
and ran backwards for just a few steps to look behind me, and I couldn't see the end
the other way either.
It was just people, as far as I could see, I really hadn't seen anything like it, other
than what you see on television when they take a picture of the Boston Marathon going
over a small bridge, but this was a five lane road, not a two lane road, this is huge.
It was impressive.
Right there at that first stop I was thinking, I gotta make my time, I gotta make my time,
I gotta make my time, and I passed my family, I gave everybody five and waved at them.
And I saw my friend Mike stop to take a picture with him, I turned around and came back.
Best thing I could do now for the race, is to change my whole outlook of the race.
I stopped, I came back, I had a picture with my family, and I thought at that moment, enjoy
the day.
Today is a unique special day, forget about the time, finish fast enough to get a medal
but enjoy and soak it in.
I actually told the guy I was running with at the time, that I met that day, said let's
run this half mile one more time, and we took off, I started running that again, I just
got done walking up a little hill, and now I'm running again, and I come around the corner
for the homestretch, 200 yards, just a little ways, and I'm running along, and the crowd's
everywhere, I can't hear anybody, but I hear everybody, a lot of crowd noise, I can't make
anything out, but it's a lot of noise, and I'm just looking straight ahead at the finish
line.
And then I look and the blur that comes from the right hand side, there's a kid out here,
what's this kid doing on the road, oh it's my kid, oh it's Derek, come here Derek, and
there's Elizabeth, come here, yay, I'm up there, there's my kid, somebody threw him over
the fence, and I never got a chance to see the rest of the crowd of my team that came
with me because I was looking at my kids, but you know what a fantastic experience to
come across the finish line with your two kids, that was great.
