The Little Rock Half Marathon

During the first weekend in March, my family all gathered for the Little Rock Half Marathon. They decided to have a little competition to keep everyone motivated to train and even had an elaborate handicap system in place to keep it fair. My mom and dad speed walk and then Robbie, John, Nathan, and Nathan's brother Jason all planned to run. This was Nathan's first half marathon. Before this, he had only run one 5k, which was not a good experience:) They all began training in October and were excited and nervous for this event. We made it a weekend of family fun!
Lindsey and I are pregnant, so we didn't plan to run. So, we headed out with Robbie's girlfriend, Connie, and the kids to stake out places to watch our runners! The kids had a really good time!
Madeline and Emma discovered that if they put their hand out, runners would come over and give them a "five" and thank them for cheering for them. They loved this! I love how Madeline wouldn't even put her hand down in that last group picture. I am glad that she wanted to encourage the runners.
We moved around a few times and ended up seeing almost all of our group at each place:) The first to finish was Robbie who made his goal of finishing in under 2 hours.
Jason finished about 2 minutes later (and also under 2 hours) but he was the one person we never saw the whole race. It was also his first half marathon and he did so well!

About 20 min. or so later, we saw Nathan! He was hurting by this point but we are so proud that he finished in a respectable 2 hours 24 min!
Here is our little family:) Will was not into taking pictures at this time. He just wanted to play! Madeline loved wearing her Daddy's medal.

Right after Nathan, came John. He expected to have a much faster time, as this was his 2nd half marathon, but ended up injuring his knee toward the end, which slowed him down a lot:( He still did well and we were proud! Lindsey is a little happy because he still hasn't beat her half marathon time yet:)
About ten minutes behind the runners came my fast, speed-walking Dad. He looked so relaxed and was very happy with his time. He ended up placing 4th among all walkers in the race!!!
My mom had recovered from pneumonia just a month before and wasn't even sure she was going to be cleared by her doctor to race. We expected her to come in closer to the 4 hour mark, so we were very surprised when she came in an hour earlier!!! With her fast time and the handicap system, she was the overall winner!!! Go mom!
Here she is with her medal and the "Race for the Rock" trophy Nathan created for the event. It is so heavy, she had to leave it with us rather than try to take it on the plane back to Spokane:) We plan to have her name and the year engraved on the back.
Here is the whole group with their medals. They all had such a good time and felt accomplished by achieving their goal of finishing:)
Nathan has officially caught the running bug now. He felt like his training could have been better. He did train mostly on the treadmill and has switched to outdoor training. He has lost a lot of weight as a result. I am proud of how hard he is working and love that he has such a healthy hobby!