Grandmas

Last weekend was the culmination of almost seven months of training for Andrew as he ran Grandma's Marathon in Duluth. We went down Friday around noon since we had to go down to the DECC to pick up his race packet and then we were going to head up the North Shore to stay at Greg and Joe's house for the weekend. Because of the road construction on I-35 it took us and hour to go down the hill and back but we made it!! After heading up north we settled in and had a yummy supper (of which poor Andrew could have none!!! He had to eat a ton of carbs in preparation for Saturday). He went back to proctor so he could catch his shuttle at 5:30 Saturday morning and the girls and I stayed with the rest of the fam at Greg's house.

Saturday morning bright and early the kids made signs to hold up as Andrew ran by. Uncle Greg secured them to cardboard and attached a handle...they were all set!

The wheelchair racers zoomed by us pretty early and so we set up our chairs on the roadside of Scenic 61 to get ready!! Uncle Joe made us a yummy breakfast to eat while we waited.

34 minutes into the race the lead vehicles and the elite runners appeared. We were right around the 7 mile mark..it's amazing that this group had just ran 7 miles in 34 minutes!! What's even more amazing is that the winner of the marathon had a total time of 2:15:44!!

The elite runners...only two of which were US citizens, most of them including the winner, were from Kenya.

Eating breakfast...and waiting to see Andrew!

The masses appear!

Here comes Andrew!

Seeing the great signs the kids made!!

A little stunned maybe with the the thought that he was about to run 19 more miles!!

After the road was clear we headed down to Lake Superior so the kids could play while we waited for Andrew to make it back up to the house.

After he recuperated he came back up to the house to tell us all of the gory details (not too bad!!) and showed off his T-Shirt and medal. Di made a great sign for him to demonstrate how proud we were of him finishing!

We then settled in after supper to enjoy the bonfire and eat Smores!

Since I was not able to be down at the finish line we were a little disappointed that we would not have any pictures of him crossing the finish line until we found this site (it won't let me bookmark it):

Go to www:Marathonfoto.com

Select Grandmas Marathon & half  2010 from the dropdown menu

Last name:Wilkinson Bib #:1167

Here are the professional pictures taken as he ran and even some of him crossing the finish line..very cool!