Race Day!!!

Here's David with his pacer tattoo on (they are the coolest - it tells you what your time should be if you are on pace at each mile) - look how excited he was at 4:30 AM!!!
Only David could see someone he knows in line at the port-o-potty. He saw one of his former students. (This was before we rode the shuttle from the Ampitheatre down to the Beach - they had a GREAT system set up for us...and of course the boys were thrilled to ride a bus!)
All the kids were dressed in orange that day...I was a bit nervous about losing someone in the crowds of 60,000 people, but we all stayed together!
Best thing I ever did was buy David this green shirt & shorts - it made it SO much easier to find him in the crowds!
We dropped him off at the port-o-potty line at the start and we headed off to wait for him at Mile Marker 1!!
This is the band that David sang with last year. (Because this was the Rock & Roll Half Marathon, they have bands that play at every mile along the course) They sang at the race last year, and David said "Maybe next year I'll actually RUN in it"...and he did!!! He said he waved at them when he ran past them and they got a kick out of that!
Here's our cheering section - camped out and waiting for Daddy!

Here was our first sighting of David at Mile 1! He was SO happy - we were SO happy to see him and cheer him on!
Look how fast he ran past us! :)
Then it was off to Mile 11. Unfortunately, we had a LONG stretch where we couldn't see him because the runners went down a long straightaway. It ended up working out well -the plan we had, because we were able to see him 4 times. But this meant that between Miles 1 & 11, we had a LONG time of sitting and waiting. The boys entertained themselves with their transformers and the bushes!
Callie played with the thundersticks (and she actually liked clapping for the other runners with me).
Josiah was about over it at this point...they DID get up at 5AM after all!

FINALLY - we see Daddy again! This was at Mile 11 and he was still going strong!! Hooray David - I was SO relieved to see him still doing well!! They had just crossed over a bridge, so I kept telling all the runners "the worst is over!!!"
We hopped over 1 street and waited to see David come around the turn at Mile 12 - he knew the finish was not far away now!!!
Sorry this picture is dark. This is right at Mile 13 - just a little bit more to the finish line!!!
There's the smile!! Almost there honey!!!
Racing to the finish...finally!!

And here he is - the half-marathon FINISHER!!! He finished is 2:03 (yes, that's two HOURS, three minutes!!!) He did AWESOME! Finished in the top 20% of all finishers, and top 30% of men (he's a math teacher, so of course he had to find out those percentages)
And here's the excited cheerleader/photographer!! I don't even remember him taking this picture afterwards...but it was probably when I said something about "you know, you're not even going to realize I was there because there's no pictures of me!!"
We went to Chili's afterwards for the celebratory lunch!

It was an amazing day. Everything went so well. It was an early morning, because we were up at 4:30 AM, but it was GREAT! So much fun. I'll admit, I was a little stressed out being on the "other" side, but it worked out! We were able to see David an amazing 4 times, which was AWESOME! He ran so well, felt so good, had such a great time - it was just wonderful. He got lots of goodies at the finish line (even a popsicle...I was so jealous), and the kids loved all the cheering and the hoopla. I was so proud of him for this HUGE accomplishment. It's amazing what you can do when you just put your mind to it. Yes, it took a lot of discipline, and a lot of sacrifice, but totally worth it! So 2008 has been quite a year so far - both of us completing our first half-marathons! I wonder what's next? Who knows, but right now we're celebrating David and his accomplishment!!