St. Louis 1/2 Marathon

WE FINALLY GOT SOME PHOTOS FROM THE RACE! SEE THE SLIDESHOW BELOW:

We didn't train well, we didn't break any land speed records, but somehow we finished 13.1 miles in just under 2.5 hours! We never stopped jogging, even up the steep hills. Our official time was 2:37, but we stopped a couple times along the course to use the restrooms. I used my watch to time our running time and it was 2:26. Our goals were to 1.) finish the damn thing, 2.) Try and get under 3 hours, and 3.) never walk. We got all of those and beat the 2nd goal by a half hour, so we were really proud of ourselves.
Mara and I were with a bunch of our friends from KCOM. Some were running the 1/2 and a couple of crazies were running the full 26.2 miles. As Pete quoted from The Simpsons: "Did you dain your bramage?". We got to StL Saturday afternoon and got our race shirts, bibs, etc., and then went to a pasta place to carb-load. Our hotel (The Crown Plaza Downtown) was REALLY nice, and very reasonable. We had a HUGE room on the 28th floor with an awesome view of the St. Louis Arch, and we were also straight out from center field of Busch Stadium where the St. Louis Cardinals play. Too bad there wasn't a game that night, we would have had awesome seats! Here are a couple of pictures from our hotel:





The race was actually a lot of fun. We couldn't have gone with a better group of people. The course had some pretty brutal hills too, and from what our crazy marathon friend Jenny told us, the full marathon had an even worse route with hills trough Forest Park. All and all, everyone had a great time, and Mara and I relaxed for 30 minutes or so in the school's hot tub and saunas. We were a little sore, but really, for how little we trained, it feels really good. Here is a group photo of everyone from KCOM:



What would one of our trips be without a little medical drama? I swear every trip we go on is like a freakin' ER episode. After supper on Saturday we went back to the hotel lobby and studied for a few hours (everyone had a Physiology exam Monday morning). We heard what sounded like some threw their luggage down the escalator, but when Mara looked up she saw an arm, and someone tumbling down the roughly 45 foot escalator. Mara rushed over an took care of the woman, who had gashed her head pretty good. If you're queasy ignore the next couple of sentences. Since she had been drinking at the hotel bar her blood was pretty thin so there was quite a lot of it pooling at the foot of the escalator. I ran an got towels and Mara got the bleeding under control until the paramedics got there. When she took the towel away a small bone fragment was stuck to it, so she gouged her head pretty well on the escalator. By the time the paramedics got her on the stretcher she was starting to come around, but she was probably pretty intoxicated. Other than a lot of stitches, there didn't seem to be any major injuries so hopefully she'll be OK.


We did get to see one guy, Dr. Ed Wolfgram, who is definitely insane. He is a professor of psychiatry at Wash U's School of Medicine in St. Louis, he's 71 years old, and has run a marathon in all 50 states PLUS D.C! He has also run 8 Ironman Triathlons (2.4-mile ocean swim, 112-mile bike race & 26.2-mile run) and is the current world champion for the 70-74 age group, beating his last opponent by 45 minutes and setting a world record for his age group. That is just nuts!