The 2nd Annual Joe Marathon

Today was The 2nd Annual Joe Marathon!  Just like last year, it was a success even though this year was slightly different because we did it as a relay.

Uncle Joe started running at 5:30am from his house.  Grandma, Grandpa, and some members of his family were up to see him off and follow him by car, but not many of the rest of us were even up yet.  Jessica joined in at mile 8.

Aunt Terry also joined by bike and after about 2 hours from the starting time, they arrived at the halfway point of the marathon course.  We stopped for a quick picture of course and then I set out on my way.

I was running from mile 13.1 to mile 20. I was the only runner during my leg, but after Uncle Joe took a few minutes to recover from his birthday morning half marathon, he caught up with me on bike so I would have someone with me.  I was also trying out mom's Garmin to see if I want to get one for myself. It was nice to have, but also felt like I was looking at it a lot. And as Uncle Rob said, it takes the fun out of doing calculations in your head while you're running. I'll keep trying it this week though.

I finished my 6.9 miles in 55:10 so right at 8 minute pace which I was happy with especially after yesterday's long run.  Since I had the Garmin, I can see my splits and they were: 8:01, 8:09, 8:01, 8:00, 7:59, 7:49, then 7:03 for the last .9.  I was glad the splits were relatively consistent/got slightly faster rather than slower.  This will be fun to use the Garmin and analyze my runs...I think I might over-analyze though.  I was wiped out when I finished my run.  It would probably make me run a lot faster on my normal runs to know I have 10 people anxiously awaiting my arrival and with water and Gatorade.

It was nice to have a little cheering section waiting for me approximately every mile and a half along my route.  They would find a little strip mall or parking lot to stop in, wait for me to run by, cheer, and offer water.  That was hard work too, especially so early in the morning.  But you can all sleep in tomorrow since you're on summer vacation!

Aunt Bernadette was part of the group waiting at mile 20 so that she could take over as runner. She was so excited to get going and set out to finish the last 10k. She had 3 bikers with her - Uncle Joe, cousin Joe, and Uncle Ron. They seemed to be having a good time and the Muellers showed up to cheer during these last couple miles too.

Aunt Bernadette successfully finished The Joe Marathon as our anchor leg! Everyone was proud of the accomplishments of the day and happy to be a part of it. We sang happy birthday to Uncle Joe again and all went inside to celebrate with bagels, donuts, fruit, etc.