Posts Tagged ‘thanks’

It’s been a while since I’ve had so many post-race thoughts, but I am trying to avoid a long drawn-out post with everything.

There are a lot of things to tell, such as meeting Bill Rodgers, discussing the hills of the Baltimore Marathon, and visiting Holabird Sports – I will get to all that eventually.

Before I do that, though, I have a big THANK YOU list to get to. I’m not sure if it’s because I put myself out there more for this race, but I felt like I had more support than usual to carry me through to the finish on Saturday.

First and foremost, I want to thank my wife for so much – for putting up with my back-and-forth antics on even doing another marathon, dealing with my sweaty clothes, getting up on Saturday mornings with my son while I was out running, hooking me up with a Mary Kay foot soak, and walking around a strange city to support me on the race course. I could easily go on and on.

I want to thank longtime friends of mine for their comments on my blog and over on Facebook. It turns out I have a lot more running friends than I ever realized.

The support on Daily Mile and Twitter have also been tremendous – I can’t thank those people enough, many of whom I will never even meet in real life. Many of us have gone through the same stuff in the past year, from injuries back to full health, and I never felt alone in that process.

I’d like to thank Dr. Wimmer of Wimmer Chiropractic. Through all my adjustments and rehab in the winter and spring, I sort of feel like we were a team getting me to another marathon. I looked back today at our Q&A exchanges from earlier this year and it’s funny to hear me talk about signing up for Baltimore when it didn’t seem realistic at the time. While Dr. Wimmer is not a runner, not yet anyway, I’d like think I taught him a thing or two in the past year.

Lastly, I’d like to thank anyone who has left a comment on here – some of you aren’t on these sites and just read for the fun of it and offer up great support (THANKS MOM!). For that, I am very grateful.

Image: Felixco, Inc. / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

There’s a lot of my mind from Saturday’s Richmond Marathon, but it’s going to take some time to find all the right words for what I’m thinking and feeling. Before I move on to those thoughts or what might happen next, I wanted to give a big “thank you” to a lot of people for all the support over the past few months and year in making this happen. Saying “thanks” isn’t enough, but it’s the best that I can do:

* To my wife
My wife was a trooper on Saturday venturing around Richmond to all the party zones and then walking her way to find me on the course near the end. In addition to all the support on Saturday, my wife never had any issues with my evening runs or early morning weekend long runs over the summer (or my sweaty clothes I liked to leave on the bathroom floor).

* To my mom
From the comments on my blog to some extra babysitting a few nights so I could run, my mom has always been one of my biggest fans.

* To my Daily Mile friends
I almost lumped social networking into one, but Daily Mile deserves its own shout-out. Without the support on there from others going through the same things, or offer advice from there own experiences, I wouldn’t have been able to do this.

* To my Twitter followers
For those who don’t “get” Twitter, you need to find your niche. The support on Twitter is unbelievable and helped carry me through many of my long runs as I took my phone along with me.

* To my friend Travis
Earlier this year Travis and I strung together some awesome runs as we prepared for the Shamrock Half in March. We didn’t run together quite as much in the summer as our training took us in different directions, but his support along the way and the mileage we shared together went a long way in making the marathon happen.

* To my dog Duke
I may get annoyed with his antics on a leash sometimes, but Duke is an awesome running partner. I should write about him more than I do. I have no idea how many miles he’s gone with me this year, but every weekend he was up and out the door at 5:30 or to run several miles of my long runs. He survived the crazy cold earlier in the year and made it through some intense heat this summer.

* To the spectators
The Richmond Marathon has some great support along the entire course (minus the Lee Bridge), along with some good bands and DJs. Even when I was walking, people were able to give me a boost. It’s tough to acknowledge those things while they’re happening, but please, keep lining the course!

* To all my commenters
There’s some overlap here, but for anyone not following me on anything not listed above, thank you for commenting and reading my blog. I’ll never meet many of you, but every comment means the world to me. Thank you.