Carmel Marathon 2015

April 18th, 2015

After running his first half marathon in October last year, Mckay decided to train for a full 26.2 mile marathon. He found a friend from church, Nick, who was equally as crazy and agreed to run with him. It was probably better that they had each other to be accountable to, otherwise there wouldn't have been much training during the cold winter months.

The marathon was on April 18th in Carmel, a suburb of Indianapolis. We drove down the night before and stayed at a nearby hotel so we didn't have to drive for an hour to get there early the next morning.

We dropped Mckay off at the starting line. My friend Ashley (Nick's wife) took these pictures. I "borrowed" them from her Facebook page. 

Mckay is all the way on the left of this picture, in the red shirt. Nick is in the picture too, he's the third person from the left, with red hair and wearing a blue and white shirt.

There were race photographers along the marathon route taking pictures of the runners. There were a couple pictures of Mckay. Here are screen shots of them: 

Mckay saw the photographer coming and posed.

The three boys and I went to cheer Mckay on at a few points along the route. We made some motivational signs.

I would have taken pictures of the boys holding the signs, but they weren't very interested in holding them up, so it was mostly me doing the sign holding. They did cheer though!

 The Marathon conveniently had a phone app for tracking the runners so I had an idea of were Mckay was at points. One of the spots we planned to see Mckay was at mile 24, almost to the finish line! The way the race route curved around, we were able to park at the finish line and then walk almost a mile to reach the 24 mile marker. I was pushing the two older boys in our double stroller and carrying Bennett strapped to my chest in a baby carrier. We made it to mile 24 with a few minutes to spare before Mckay made his way around the corner.

The boys hugged him and cheered for him as he ran past.

Now we had to hurry to walk the one mile back to the finish line, hoping to get there before Mckay could run 2.2 miles there. I thought that the older boys could run on the sidewalk for a bit and make the stroller I was pushing a little lighter. That lasted about 20 seconds before Connor tripped and fell into some sharp bushes and mulch by the sidewalk. He was all bloody on his legs and had a bloody nose too. So not only did I lose time stopping to clean up and console the poor boy, but now I had to push 75 pounds and carryanother 15 pounds while walking quickly. Did I mention it was the first warm (75 degree) day of the year? I was a little sweaty and out of breath as we approached the finish line. In fact, a man nearby commented, "I can't help but think that you are working harder today than whoever it is you're cheering for." I told him I'd thought the same thing several times that day.

We made it to the finish line just in time to see Mckay crossing. Here are a few more professional screen shots:

I love this one because you can see Nick clapping for Mckay in the background. You can see Nick's face inside the letter "f" of Proof.

And here's the picture that Ashley got of Mckay crossing the finish line.

There was a ton of free food being handed out to the runners at the finish line; chocolate milk, water, pizza, bananas, apples, crackers, chips and trail mix.

The runners also got free massages. (I say free, but when you have to pay to enter the marathon, I don't think it really counts as free.)

When it was Mckay's turn for a massage, he was asked where he needed it the most. Um, legs. Mostly the legs. Dallin and Connor worked on his arms a bit though.

After Mckay was rested enough to begin using his legs again, we went to the van, got some lunch at Chipotle, and then drove by the new Indianapolis temple being built in Carmel.

Looking beautiful and almost complete!

Mckay ran the marathon in 4 hours and 36 minutes. A new personal record!

He also beat his old half marathon time with 1 hour 59 minutes this time around. He is pretty amazing.