Marathon Man

Mark did well today at the Philadelphia marathon. He had two goals: under 3:45 and under 4 hours. Why two goals? To make the race realistic for him. No matter. A raw day, but blessedly free of the freezing rain that came later. His official time was 3:42:31. Afterwards, tired but resilient, he hobbled back to the car. I am glad it wasn't a piece of cake for him. After all that training it needed to be tough to justify the effort. (And more selfishly, I had such a tough time with the same feat in 2003, that I needed this to be ugly for him as well.) He felt the pain at mile 24 when his back seized up in the cold. Up until that point he had been running at a pace of 3:40. The last 2.2 miles were brutal for him. We (our kids, Mark's brother and wife--my running partner, their kids, and I) cheered him from different vantage points and found him shivering beneath his Mylar blanket at the finish. After a detour of Philly cheese steaks, we went home and napped. I usually can't nap for more than 20 minutes, but I was out for two hours. Did I experience sympathy fatigue? Today I was grateful for the nap, my warm bed, the people who supported Mark (nod to the the East Pete Woods, Jeff Steed and Doug Yoder), and that Mark safely finished his race.