the bigger picture: jordan is a marathoner

Jordan completed his first marathon today! That's 26.2 MILES! I'm so proud of him. A spectator lady asked me if it's actually 26 miles or if it's "just a 26 K or something". I assured her that it was definately an accurate 26.2 MILES... silly lady! This spring, Jordan signed up for the Grand Rapids Marathon and got his friend Jeremy to commit, too. He has been running long distance steadily since January when we started the 25k training. He has mostly stuck to the training and he has remained injury-free. I believe he was as readily prepared for the race today as he could be and he did great!!

Mom and Dad Barkel went with me and the kids to cheer him on. We got our first glimpse of him at mile 18. We laughed because all of a sudden, Jeremy was right in front of mom's face throwing his shirt at her! She had no idea what was going on!! Jordan came by just a few seconds later and I gave him some more energy beans. He looked exhausted but was flying by. We hardly even got a chance to cheer him on. And actually, we were lucky that we caught that glimpse of him because he and Jeremy were running at about a 9 minute/mile pace which was faster than what Jordan and I had estimated. So we were figuring on watching at that marker for 15 minutes or so before the earliest possible time that we would see the guys. And there they were ahead of schedule! We got back to the car and drove over to the finish line. The emotion is always thick there. While some runners are blitzing by, others are clearly struggling. But everyone finishes and I think I give a greater applause to the ones that struggled. It was a longer and harder race for them and they overcame something much greater in themselves. I was so proud and relieved to see Jordan at that 26 mile-marker. He appeared to be in good shape although he said he didn't feel that way.

He finished in 4:27:57!! He said he definately hit the wall at mile 20 which was the furthest he had ever run. He didn't drink a whole lot during the race because it made him have to pee immediately so he was very thirsty afterwards. And he had a headache throughout the race. But his body was in mostly good form... it wasn't until he stretched afterward that his legs started to cramp up but not as bad as in previous races. So I consider it to be a great success. He wouldn't give an answer on if he would do it again until one week after the marathon. So we'll see.... But I think he will ;)

Here's my marathon man: