It was mainly walking. I did run 0.42 miles but realized it wasn't going to work too well wearing jeans and besides I decided not to screw around between spectating points.
So, Tom was running Grandma's Marathon today, his third marathon and first one since Boston last year. I saw him go by at miles 3, 9, and 19 and was trying for mile 24ish but couldn't get to a parking spot before him. They had an app to track runners. It didn't seem to update "in real time" for a lot of the runners but it did reasonably well for Tom.
As I waited at mile 19, a lot of the runners were looking a bit tired but still moving well. These were the elite men, then the sub-elite men mixed in with the elite women. I think there were well over 100 men registered as "elites".
There was a guy that I'd seen at miles 3 and 9 who had long blonde hair in cornrows, he was about a minute or two ahead of Tom at those first to spots, so was looking out for him. Not sure if I missed him, but saw Tom come through right on schedule according to both the last update on the app and him holding a steady pace.
Tried to get quickly over to mile 24 but I didn't have a good parking plan.
There was supposed to be an update at mile 23.9, it came in eventually but was a bit delayed, the first one that was delayed so I couldn't tell if it was just delayed or he slowed down. Fortunately, when the result came in, still showed him on pace.
Between checkpoints, the app updates the distance every 0.1 miles based on recent average speed. So, when it hit 26.2 I wasn't sure if that was it, then finally got the finish alert and also a text from Jenny who was near the finish area with his brother Andy.
He'd done amazing! 2:28:30, new PR and a negative split!
Hung out for a little after the race and as we walked back to the cars, just before splitting up got a picture with Tom and Andy for an early Father's Day for me since it would be tough to meet up tomorrow with the travel.
I headed back on a flight that night (ended up getting delayed about 5 hours which included a diversion to Atlanta to refuel) wanted to get back early enough to at least spend some time with the toddler.
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