St. Louis Marathon

What a marathon weekend...literally and figuratively:) After a busy 3 weeks of Atlanta, Seattle and Vancouver, our weekend trip to St. Louis caps off a busy month of traveling. Micah had a great time hanging out at Nana Kay and Papa C's house. His favorite toy of the weekend is shown below...

"I sure love this bowl and spoon. It makes a fun noise."

"Who's that coming down the stairs?"

"It's Nana Kay! Whoo hoo:)"

"Peek-a-boo!"

"Hee, hee...I'm so funny..."

"Listen to this sound, Momma"

"Now, where was I?"

The next morning we all headed out at 5:30am to downtown St. Louis for me to run my 2nd marathon in 3 weeks. Oddly enough, I wasn't as worried about the actual running of 2 races in a short time frame but rather the weather forecast. And, as it turns out I had reason to be worried. This was the 11th annual St. Louis marathon and it was the first time in the history of the race that they had to cancel it due to heat. The race started out at 67+ degrees at 7am, and only climbed from there. With the heat and humidity, the day ended up at 90+ degrees!! It was definitely a tough race, and I was ecstatic to be done...and even more, to not have another planned for right now. Apparently, the course was actually closed to marathoners if they had not reached the 9 mile mark by 2 hours in and were rerouted to the half marathon course instead. So......that being said, I eeked in just under 4 hours at 3:58:21, and am done running for a little while;)

Looks like a beautiful day...but as I found out, looks can be deceiving:)

Hanging out with Nana Kay, waiting for me to show up at mile 5.

All smiles early on...

Note, those miles could no longer be found at mile 14...I felt about as bad as that guy in front of me looked. This happened to be my wall in this race...ouch! I hit it really early.

Micah was able to hang out in the grass (on a blanket) because apparently he was quite scared to actually touch the grass, haha. He also participated in the cheering of the race, clapping runners on their way to finishing...

Thankfully I was able to recover from my early wall. This is at mile 20, and I have a second wind! (It passed quickly, though, as I was walking by mile 21:))

"Yay, Momma's back!"

"I'm proud of you Mommy. Someday, I'll run with you."

Micah and me with my parents. Thanks for the support, Mom and Dad, on a very trying day!

And a huge thanks to my husband for being so, so supportive of me and all my running endeavors. I just have the best family ever, and I am super blessed!

One more story I almost forgot to include...on our drive back home, I noticed Micah felt a bit warm. He was acting slightly cranky as well, so I took his temp to find it at 100 degrees. Poor baby was sweating up a storm! I thought he might have an ear infection starting, but after a clean doctor visit today (and a 96.5 temp this morning), I think he was truly just overheated from the race yesterday. My friend Noelle ran the race as well, and her daughter actually passed out from heat exhaustion on their way back to the hotel. So scary, and I'm so thankful that both our kiddos are okay!