National Marathon 2008

On Saturday Nathan ran the National Marathon through D.C.. They have these cool things called "Pace Tat"s- that you put on like a fake tatoo and it has what all of your projectied times should be according to what you want to run- so that all you have to do is look at your arm to see if you are on track etc. pretty cool I think...and maybe in a strange way a little sexy...I'm just saying! ;)

It was a lot sunnier and colder -go figure- this year than last and with the wind chills at 7am it was straight up frigid. I wanted to quit and I was just a spectator. Nathan's cousin Peter and his *girlfriend Jen (*read following post for the changing of Jen's girlfriend status) came down and rode the Metros all over with me to catch him at different mile markers and cheer him on- I was so grateful for their company and Metro hopping skills -the kind even Napoleon would be jealous of. Nathan tried a new thing this marathon called Negative Splits (I know, sounds like something only the Peking Acrobats should be doing) where basically you really hold yourself back in the beginning and then continually go a bit faster and you end up passing hundreds of people which is super good mentally, and supposedly you aren't feeling like you are going to die mile #20. Well, apparently it worked because Nathan beat his best time by several minutes and finished in 3hours, 39 min!!! Trust me, that is good. He said that mentally it was his best race ever because by holding back in the beginning and not getting caught up in the initial excitement of the race and overdoing it, he took his time and didn't even feel like he was running a race until mile 17-never thought I would write the last 12 words.... I am SO proud of him and impressed with this race...in the freezing cold...running (voluntarily, mind you)...for 26.2 miles.