5:12:17

Bright and early in the morning we lined up in downtown Chicago to watch 40,000+ runners pass by. There was music pumping, my awesome cousin Becky came down from GR, and we were super excited to watch the event! Can't you just see it on Addison's face? :)

About 7 minutes after the race started we saw the leaders at a mile and a half in.  It is astonishing to me how fast they run. We kept saying we can't even run that fast for 5 seconds!

Then after about 25 minutes of waves of people Dave appeared right in front of us! At 1.5 miles in, he's looking pretty happy. :)

We happened to be standing right after one of the water stations... oops.... so we got a lot of empty cups by our feet, and a couple sprays of water every now and then.

We saw Dave and Ryan run past us at mile 2.5, then slowly wandered over to the 12 mile mark. We made it over there to see people who had run about 1:10 so far - they were still booking it crazy fast and hardly looked to be exerting any energy. Our crew wasn't going to show up for another hour+. Luckily we were close enough to the Sears tower to take some nice pics of it.  FYI - I will always call it the Sears tower!

 Unfortunately the kiddos got a little of sick of waiting in the same spot for over an hour. They played a couple games, but finally had enough!  Classic.

12 Miles in and still going strong!

I had my hand up to give Ryan a high five, but the woman in front of him (left side of pic) was so excited that she gave me a high five, too. Hey why not? Give them a little encouragement.

After the guys passed 12 miles we made our way to lunch and the 26 mile marker!

 

So Dave had been using this RunKeeper tracker, and we were able to track his progress through the whole race. Well around mile 21 the tracking map didn't seem to to be moving much. Then we get a call from Dave. His legs were cramping bad and he had to start walking. We told him to eat another banana and drink gatorade. Twenty five minutes later and it looks like he hasn't moved on the tracking map. I started freaking! The most he's trained is 12 miles - cause he's crazy and the prior month his knee was hurting - so now I think he's passed out or having issues at a First Aid stand. Thankfully he calls a couple minutes later saying he's fine but can't run anymore.

We waited at the 26 mile mark watching waves and waves of people coming through. Seriously, it was a continually packed road for the two hours we were standing there.

Dave was on track for 4:22, but because of his legs he ended up having to walk the last 5+ miles. He walked past us and wasn't looking in bad shape. A couple minutes later Ryan ran past.  Ryan beat Dave by a little under 5 minutes. Dave come in at 5:12:17! Not bad for a FIRST marathon!!

Although he was a little defeated, he felt pretty good about it overall. He told me after the race I had to remind him to not run a marathon for awhile. By that night he was planning his next race. Here the champion is as we waited a couple hours for our plane at O'Hare. 

Congratulations Dave for completing your first marathon, Ryan for beating your first marathon time, and Erik for hitting your goal of under 4 hours!! You guys are awesome!