The Marathoner’s Spouse

We’re up in Denver cheering my husband on in another marathon. (I think it’s his sixth?) The Colfax Marathon.

Well, we’re not actually cheering him on yet. It’s five minutes to 6. In the morning. He is currently in the corral waiting for the starting signal in five minutes. The kids are still asleep. When they wake up we’ll pack up and head out to see him on the course.

I signed up to get text alerts of his progress along the course. (By the way, how did anyone do … well … anything before the Internet? Seriously.)

Being a marathon fan is tougher than it sounds. Especially with two littles in tow. There’s the challenge of navigating city streets with many roads closed. Then there’s finding parking near enough to walk to a good spectator spot. Theres unloading the kids and hauling them through the crowd of spectators to the sidelines, this time in an enormous double jogger. Of course I have to time everything perfectly so that we’re at the exact spot for the couple seconds he runs by. If I happen to get all that correct, I have to pick him out among the usually tens of thousands of runners.

Then we pack it all up and race to the next spot and do it all over again. Sometimes several times.

Of course, most of the crowd is at the finish line, so it’s much more challenging to actually see him finish. We usually just wander among the crowd and I track his iPhone until our dots converge. (Again my point about the Internet.)

Running a marathon is a huge accomplishment. Running multiple marathons is even more of an impressive feat.

But don’t underestimate the chops is takes to be a marathoner’s spouse.