The Marathon

No dont get carried away, i DID NOT run any marathon. I would NEVER run a marathon, my running career ended with the 12km race I did a couple of years back where 6 hours after the race I still thought I was going to die. Marcos, 2 of our friends Domingo & Miguel AND Mary Anne, go girl, one of the americanitas, all ran the marathon a couple of weeks ago here in Seville. Marcos had been training regularly for this and was completely into it after running his first marathon in Madrid (with no training...Freak!) a while back. He started eating healthier, (no more choclate milk and broken biscuits for breakfast!) and with all the training he actually lost crap loads of weight and is a shadow of his former tubbier self. The race was on a sunday and I had to forgo my normal "sleep in till midday" sunday rule and be a model marthon racer girlfriend. I went along at 9.30 am (shudder) to the 10km mark with Marcos´s Mum to be there to pass Marcos his first bottle of blue powerade and an energy bar as he whizzed past. Marcos´s father was all nervous excitement and went along on his bike to follow Marcos!! Marcos said at one point he told his father to get the hell away from him (very suble the spanish are). Then I met up with Miguels model marathon runner girlfriend Maria, who had a map with strategically marked points that Miguel had prepared for her and "energy gel" to pass on to Miguel. We went to the 20km mark to pass the gels, bars and powerades like good little girlfriends and cheer as they went past. It was actually quiet exciting, I liked cheering on random people and its nice to see strangers there just cheering the people on for support.

We then went on to the 30km (in a car of course) where we met Isabel, who made it with only seconds to spare to see her husband Domingo whizz past her. (here he is, looks like he is running to the shops!) All three of us then rushed to the stadium, and we were rushing, even running at one point, I mean REALLY. why again?


We made it to the stadium to see each one finish.
Here is MaryAnne finishing, just behind Marcos, and actually came in 11th place out of the women! Good effort!!!




Here is Miguel finishing, he is SMILING! He saw us in the crowd thats why and we were cheering like he was Kathy Freeman winning the 400m at the olympics.

Marcos finished in 3hours 27minutes and was very happy with himself cause he wanted to beat his fathers own sevilla marathon 3h30min family record. Although never one to be beaten his father added later that he did it as a 45 year old so that has to count for a few minutes extra! I was told later that around the 25km point, Marcos´s Dad was riding his bike and filming Marcos and he ran into a "señora" and completely stacked it off his bike! He is 63! Bloody maniac! He was fine except for some sore ribs!? and got back on the bike and continued filming!
We all went for a beautiful lunch afterwards and I said to the other girls, "20 bucks says that every sentence from now on out of the boys mouths will start with..." At kilometre blah blah" And yes I was right, but it wasnt just for the day it went along for the whole next week, along with the screaming of pain everytime Marcos moved. Mmm marathons. Fun.