My husband and I spent a lot of time in the car on Saturday to make it all the way out to the Outerbanks of North Carolina to see my brother Michael run his fifth marathon.
His running all began a few years ago when I asked him to sign up for the Broad Street 10 mile run in Philadelphia (where we lived at the time) with me. He did. It was a struggle for a weight lifter, but he did it. And then a half marathon. And then a marathon, and then another marathon, etc.
This was the fourth one he ran this year. He is absolutely crazy.
He saw people fall over and collapse around him and kept going (it was surprisingly hot yesterday). We saw one guy hop, literally, across the finish line as he had a bad sprain in his right ankle. We saw a lot of mother-daughter, father-son teams running together. We saw two young ladies screaming in pain as they held hands and sprinted across the finish line. It was inspiring.
Mike thought he had something in his shoe early in the race so he pulled over to take of his shoe only to put it back on and stop again about a mile later because whatever was in there must have been in his sock and not his shoe.
A mile after that he was in the med tent because there wasn't a little rock in his shoe, it was his foot--a bone out of whack--no skin there to cover it. He had his foot wrapped and then went on the finish the race in less than five hours.
Not bad for a 40 year old.
We were waiting at the finish line and I got to run next to him for the last stretch of the race. It was so exciting to see him come running down the street right before the finish line. I was so excited I jumped into the street and started screaming, "Mike! Mike!" and he looked at me and gave me a big smile. All this after running 26 miles, most of that with an injured foot.
I love my brother. I am so proud of him.
His response about the marathon: "running is a humbling activity"
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