Naha Marathon

Jon has now participated in his first international marathon.  We went with him to packet pick up - when entering the building to get his stuff we noticed everyone stopped to take off their shoes.  Instead of taking shoes off myself and the girls we just waited outside.  Shoes coming off was not something we expected and there seemed to be a lot of that this weekend.   The marathon had water and sponge stops.  The "water" stops had: coke, lukewarm tea, Aquarius (grapefruit Gatorade) and what Jon said was liquid vomit.  He got a few cups of water and the rest were Russian roulette in the way he described it. 

For the race the plan was to park at the mall and ride the monorail downtown since parking is hard enough when there aren't 25,000 people running a marathon downtown.  It worked great except the malls parking lot doesn't open until 9am and we were there at 6:45am.  Lucky for us Toys R Us was down the road a little bit and its parking lot was not closed so we parked there and walked to the train.  Riley loved riding the choochoo.  I did too until a few hundred of us were crammed into one train and the girls were getting squished.  After making it the race we sat with Jon for a little and when the race started headed our own way. 

When we went for packet pick up I noticed a park right next to the finish line and the girls and I spent many hours there.  We were able to facetime my parents and our friend Tina to pass some of the time.  One conversation was ended as Riley started throwing up!  Oh boy, a little water and rest later she was doing great.  We went for a lunch break and got rice and chicken on a stick and everyone got their own drink.  After lunch break we went back to the park and hung out near the finish line and the girls got to be surrounded by their fan club.  I cheered on many guys who I thought were Jon as the blue singlet was very popular, but once they got closer I noticed a few differences and realized it wasn't him.  We did get to cheer him on right before he ran into the stadium for the final push of the marathon.  He met us as the park and crashed while the girls got out a little more energy and then we headed home.  For our victory dinner we stopped at A&W and now we are all recovering my laying around in the house watching ESPN and the highlights of some pretty amazing games today. 

Wondered why everyone was stopped until we noticed the shoe thing

All the race stuff





After waking everyone up at 5:45am we are ready for our train ride



This is as fun as yesterday on the train



Last minute prep before the race and girls are gooing up

Riley playing with Jon's lucky socks that Aunt Kaitlin made when they were in high school

Checking out the couple running in their wedding gear

Found a good spot to watch the race start

The bridge to the start the race

Why not run with a 7foot silver thing on your head??

Morning snack of rice balls and chicken on a stick

Meat lollipop

Playing with their cars

Yep - kids were all dressed up to cheer on the runners

The fan club that look tons of pictures with the girls and played with them for 30 min

HE FINISHED!!

Little more playing during recovery time

A view of the race while we were getting on the monorail to leave

The yellow roller slide I was super excited about.
Too bad it was closed for the race

The extrovert is the only one who still has energy to smile after a day of people

Post race meal- free refills (which is rare here)!!

Kelly caught on a little late and yelled "cheese"