Monday, May 19, 2008

Marathon Success!

Here is a picture of me running around Lambeau Field - home of the Green Bay Packers. The last .2 miles of the 26.2 marathon was through the tunnel that the Packers run through to run onto the field, then around Lambeau field. I also drug my hand on the End Zone mats that you can see behind me.

I improved my finish time by about 5 minutes from my first marathon, running this one in 4:17:15. My legs are a bit sore today, but nothing unusual. The day was SO fun! We came to Wisconsin to visit Jim's sister & family, and our brother-in-law had also trained for the marathon to run with us. This was Jim & Robert's first marathon, so they were so excited to have the first one under their belts, and they are looking forward to doing another one.

Jim's sister & nephews were there to cheer us on. They were at the starting line, then went to mile 6 and had made signs in the meantime!! They will likely never know just how much it meant to Jim & I to be there cheering us on, especially making the very funny signs that meant so much and were so appropriate for us - very inspiring & funny. We laughed a few times during the race just thinking about them! Then they went to about mile 17 to cheer us on from there too - great to see them again!!! The next time we saw them was in Lambeau Field....they were in the bleachers cheering & waving those signs. Again, seeing them gave me the motivation to pick up the pace & just get to the finish. It is great to have your own personal cheering section!!

We are having a blast in Wisconsin, it is beautiful here! Robert's friend, Andy, took us fishing on the Wisconsin River. The scenery was beautiful & I caught more fish than I ever have at one time!

We have eaten WAY too much while we have been here - Jim's sister is a fabulous cook. We also attended the 150th Stevens Point birthday party, took their bassets & had a picnic. We are enjoying the 50 & 60 degree weather here since it is already in the 80s & 90s in Orlando.

We enjoyed ice cream at a local favorite, Belts - a Snickers flurry - YUM. We also ate lunch at Hilltop Restaurant, sat outside & ate yummy beer batter fries.

We are going to a cheese factory tomorrow morning before we venture back to the airport to fly back to Orlando. I have had a wonderful time here; lots of great conversation, lots of laughter, naps, great food & just good quality time with family. Who could ask for anything more?

3 comments:

The Raw Family said...

Jill,
Glad you made it through your marathon! Sounds like you had a great time! Looking forward to catching up with you sometime soon. Audie

CC said...

Congrats on the marathon. I ATTEMPTED the Maui marathon ten years ago and it wasn't successful thanks to a knee injury. I did 16.5 miles (that doesn't sound paltry when you think about it, except I really wanted to finish)...so good for you! I know it's a lot of hard work...... Thanks for giving me the info on your blog...do you care if I forward it on to Ali (Marz)...she has a blog too and is the one who got me into this crazy blog business.

Ali said...

Fabulous work! I ran a couple over the last few years and participated in the Disneyland Half last September (my current favorite).

I saw your comment on Christen's blog and noticed that you hopped to it from Frys....can you help me get to Kristen Fry? I've been dying to chat with her.

Glad all is well...Ali Marz Thompson (CC's plege class)
My blog is trippnali.blogspot.com