The St. George Marathon

As I mentioned in my previous post, I was going to post some pictures of the St. George Marathon. However, I would have liked to have posted some pictures of my two running buddies coming through the finish line, but because of a series of unfortunate events I was unable to get those pictures. But they both completed the race and did a great job!

The marathon this year was a cold and rainy one. I heard in the 32 years since this marathon started, that this was the 2nd time it had rained during the entire race. Anyone who ran and completed the race, I totally admire all their hardwork. Their surroundings were miserable. With all the cold wind and rain, several people were treated with hypothermia upon their completion of the race. A huge shout out to my running buddies Brooke and Kris!!! And two other friends of mine, Val and Kathie. Who live here in my ward, that I don't actually run with but also completed the race...you're are both awesome too!

Even though it was cold and wet that morning, I decided to take Kaylee down to the marathon with me since she had never seen what a marathon finish line was like. Unfortunately, the first thing that she sees was some woman who had just crossed over the line puking her guts out. Let me just say she was not amused from that point on. Especially when she saw this guy...

The bloody nipple guy. This is what happens to most men who don't take the necessary precautions in protecting their chest with either bandaids or duct tape before running. Their nipples get rubbed raw from their shirts. This was the last straw for Kaylee. She decided that she wanted to go sit in the car all by herself and wait this thing out.

The marathon can bring so many people together for so many different reasons. I snapped a picture of these two twins:

They were exact from head to toe. For whatever their reason was, I'm sure their sisterly love and the goal to run a marathon brought them together for this race.

There were lots of tears this morning. I small part of me knew what was behind those tears. There is a feeling you get at the end of a race that puts you into tears. They are tears of happiness, hardwork and completion. And as far as I'm concerned, this woman could cry all she wanted to.

There are people from all over the world who come here just to run this marathon. United Kingdom, Canada, Denmark, Mexico and Japan are just a few. I snapped this guy who just so happened to activate my camera's flash because the "image" was so dark. There were teams of people running together like this lady who was from the group who called themselves "Team B*$%#". As to why they decided upon that name, I'll never know!
There were some other interesting pictures I snapped, like this one. The girl must have dyed her hair the night before because she came through the finish line with red dye dripping from her head onto the top of her white tank-top. Note to self: never dye your hair before running a major race, never dye your hair before running a major race...okay, got it!!! I noticed a friend's father standing at the medals booth placing medals around the necks of the runners. He was approached by one woman who announced to him that it was her 40th birthday that day and she decided to run the marathon. So he takes both of her hands and starts to sing a full Happy Birthday song to her. I thought that was the sweetest thing! There was no reason for him to do that, he was getting paid, he didn't know her, but the gesture to make someone's day was so sweet. I was in awe of the moment that I didn't think to get a picture of him singing. I came across these interesting facts about marathons through Wikipedia.com. It states there are over 800 organized, worldwide marathons yearly. The largest being New York City, Boston, Chicago, London and Berlin. It's distance is 26.22 miles run by foot. The world record time is 2 hours 3 minutes and 59 seconds. The man who won the male division this year completed the St. George Marathon in 2 hours 22 minutes and 22 seconds. The woman who finished in the female division came in at 2 hours 49 minutes and 49 seconds. The man was only 20 minutes short of the world's record. It's all amazing to me! Whether you decide to run a marathon or not, you must see one in person. There are so many emotions to be felt in just one morning.