Ryan Runs Again!

On Saturday morning, Ryan ran a half marathon with his running group. Their coach urged everyone to sign up and had been building the workouts around the race. We were really excited because Ryan was feeling good and it was just going to be a fun time. Then, Willa broke her arm on Friday night and that took some of the fun out of it, but I decided that if the girls were doing okay in the morning, I would take them to the finish line.

The race was at 7:00 am and Ryan said not to expect him before 8:15. We got there around 8:00 and were able to get near the finish line. It was just a nice day. The 5K was finishing up and then two extremely fast runners in black jerseys came in. I was a little disappointed because they were from a different team and if they were first and second place, that meant Ryan had to beat his teammates to just get third place, which might be difficult. Well, tada! In comes a yellow jersey. It was Ryan! I was a little surprised, but mostly very excited and happy for him. He won third place and had a personal best of 1:15! That's like an average of a 5.45 mile. When I run these days if I can do half that fast then I feel pretty good about myself. He was flying! The girls and I started cheering and he waved to us as he finished. He was speedy, speedy, speedy and still had lots of energy at the end of the race.

It was a very fun race and he also won $100 purse! If only he could quit his job and run several races a day. It was really fun having his team there. They were all cheering and we were cheering as they came in one after another. His whole team did really well. Their coach road her bike alongside them and would encourage them or urge them to break away at times. It was nice having friends there and to feel like people were cheering him on. He's not the speediest guy in the shorter runs, but he's built up more endurance and it really showed in this race.

I'm kicking myself for not getting a family photo after the race because it was such a nice day and a nice time. This is a photo of Ryan and Bryce, the other white guy on the team.

After the main winners had come in and the other runners were just trickling in, Willa wanted to run and have us clap for her. She would sneak to the finish line and run through it while we clapped. I tried to hold her back and to have her go when there were no runners in sight, but one time I was scrambling after June and Willa ran through right as another guy was trying to finish. I felt so bad about it! After that, I decided it was time to take the girls out of there before we got in trouble.