Monday, October 19, 2009

Pride! ...and.... Prejudice!

Okay, I will concede that I am PREJUDICED because, afterall, They are My Daughters, ...but I couldn't have been more PROUD of my 2 Marathon Runners yesterday!

Andie and Paige were both hoping to qualify for the Boston Marathon and needed to run under 3:40 (based on their age). I was nervous about their ambitious goal; anything under 4 hours is a respectable marathon, under 3:40 is a great race! They clearly had their sights set high!

Lo and behold, they both had AMAZING RACES; both of them clearing even a 3:30 hurdle easily! They raced together most of the marathon, taking turns pulling each other along! They finished up with times of 3:25 (Andie) and 3:27 (Paige) - both easily qualifying for The Boston Marathon! And they finished up as the 24th and 29th Overall Runners and both took 6th in their Age Groups! Incredible! There's something like 20,000 entries for the half & full marathon.

"What the daughter does, the mother did." -Jewish proverb. I like this proverb but in our household it isn't technically true! In other words, this mother never ran a a sub 3:30 marathon! Of course I didn't run my first marathon until I was almost 40 and ran a 3:52. And I guess we will never know what my time could have been if I'd started doing distance earlier. But I am pretty thrilled that my daughters did so well!

The rest of The "A" Team ran the half marathon and we all had a fun race but weren't quite as driven as the girls! The weather was perfect; not too cold and not too hot. I think all the runners would agree with the Steve Prefontaine quote that "A race is a work of art that people can look at and be affected in as many ways as they're capable of understanding."