My sister Katie and her husband Matt ran in their first marathon on Sunday. They were joined by about 30,000 other people to run the Marine Corps Marathon. What an experience! Weeks and weeks of training for a little over 5 hours of grueling running. All five Geshay siblings joined in for the spectating as well as Matt's younger sister and his parents. We placed ourselves at points though out the race to encourage our runners. Our new associate pastor, Stan, also ran but it was his 3rd time. He's old hat :) It was so much fun to encourage all of the runners as they ran past. My sister said to me at one point, "Who knew you were such a cheerleader" to which I responded, "How can you not cheer as they run past" it was so inspiring. Especially in this marathon, seeing all of the members of our military as well as some who have lost limbs in fighting for us. Katie and Matt ran for the American Cancer society. On their shirts they had names of people listed that they were running for. There were teams running for Autism, which Stan ran for, for lymphoma and leukemia foundation, the wounded warriors foundation and about 66 other charities. A very exciting and exhausting day. Matt finished in under 41/2 hours and Katie in just over 5. Both were slowed down at the beginning b/c there were so many people running, they couldn't really get their stride til about mile 16. They both did so great and we are all SO proud of them! Congrats guys!
Here are some pictures, I wasn't the best photographer this day, it was too exciting, I was much too concerned with encouraging them I took horrible ones. I missed Stan every time he ran by. It ended up being emotional too. Katie was so exhausted at the end, I ran with her for a little while to encourage her. We were all choked up! So I don't have any of them finishing! If you click on the link above for the MCM you can look up more pictures of them. You can get their bib numbers from the pics.
Walking to the start - - SOOO many people look carefully, they wind through the whole picture!
Funniest part of the day, men going to the bathroom in the trees before the race.
Katie and Matt waiting to use the Port-a-Potty's before the race :) Stan in the background in the green Autism shirt.
The starting line. Can't you pick them out?
Matt just after mile 10 just to the right of the picture in the green.
Katie, just after mile 10, turning around for energy beans :)
After the race!
Such strong runners! They were awesome!
