WEEKEND IN MEMPHIS

Last Thursday we left Hutchinson for Kansas City(Overland Park) and spent the evening and night with Phil & Julie and their children. The next morning we left their house to go pick up Elisa in Olathe at 5:45 a.m. When we had Elisa, we headed for Gardner to meet June and her friends and left from there to head for Memphis, Tennessee, where Rog and I were going to run a 5K and then cheer our daughters, June & Elisa, on in their marathon race(26.2 miles). It was a nice day to travel and by 3:00 p.m. or so we were in Memphis. We checked into our motel and shortly headed out to the expo where we were to pick up our packets for the race. It was a very busy place and over the loud speaker they announced that someone had lost a $100 dollar bill and if anyone saw it, would they please turn it in. No chance of keeping that one:) We picked up our packets and  wandered around among the hundreds of people in there for quite a while and then headed out to find something to eat. 


We needed a few things at the grocery store that was right by our motel so we parked at the motel and walked to the store. We also saw a place(small) called Luchessi's that had pasta and sandwiches so since pasta is a good thing before a race, we decided to try it. I understand it was delicious but since I was(am) on a diet, I could only take their word for it. Part of the girls were not with us so we called to see what they were doing and they said all the restaurants had an hour or two wait so I encouraged them to come on over and I would try to talk the people into staying open longer so they could eat there too. They were supposed to close at 8 p.m. and the girls got there at 8:03 but they made it in. They were glad we had let them know.


Then we went back to the motel to rest up for the big race day. Elisa had run a marathon 15 years ago with her sister Julie so this would be her second one. June was going to be running her first marathon in celebration of her 40th birthday and it didn't really look too promising for June to finish since she had a broken bone in one foot and had dropped an RV refrigerator door on her other foot so her feet were hurting. But June has a lot of determination(wonder where she got that)and she was going to try to do it.


Rog & I began our race at 7:15 a.m. and the girls would not start until 8:00 so we thought we could see them off. We found the 3 mile point but waited a long time for them to get to that marker and then we moved on. Since this was going to take a while, we went back to the car to warm up and thought maybe we would go back to the motel and change clothes. As we drove around after leaving the parking garage, we soon got locked up in traffic and runners going by so we couldn't move. Then one of the girls called and said that June needed a Tylenol - could we bring one - I said I would try. I tend to want to help when reality says we can't go anywhere. We couldn't move for some time but finally we saw Elisa coming again so I jumped out and tried to get a picture and cheer for her - failed on the picture - don't have any idea who the guy was on my camera. I jumped back into the car and we went and parked in another parking garage and decided to walk and see if we could find June. It was probably about mile 8 or 9 when we saw Elisa and we wandered clear to the finish line and started backtracking to find June. She was beyond needing Tylenol by this time but I was still determined to get it to her. At mile 23 or 24 we met Elisa again and Rog said, why don't you run with her for a while so I did. I handed him my jacket & phone and off we went. She needed encouragement - she just wanted to lay down and maybe even cry. I prayed for her and then she thanked me and told me to go back and meet June so I turned around and headed back to meet up with Rog and June. I walked over a mile and started thinking maybe he turned and went some other way but I had no way to get ahold of him since he had my phone so I went out in the street at the next corner and asked a police officer if he could call a number for me. He dialed it and handed it to me and when Rog answered I asked if he had kept going and he said yes, so I hung up and kept walking toward June. About a mile later I saw them and June was walking but doing a good pace so that we almost had to run to keep up with her so I decided she wasn't near as pathetic as I thought and seemed in good spirits. 


As we were walking and trying to keep up, I started having problems breathing(like when you have asthma) and it seemed to be getting worse so I sat down and told Rog to go on but he wasn't going to leave me. A med person working at the race asked what our problem was and we said I was out of energy and having trouble breathing so he wanted to give me sugar(which on my diet I'm not suppose to have) and I said no, I'll be alright. He left a couple big sugar tablets and some pretzels and went on his way. I tried to walk again but it started happening again so I told Rog to go get the car and come back and pick me up. No, he was not going to leave since it would take him an hour to get to the car. About this time an SUV drove by and turned around to ask if we were ok. I just asked them if they could take us to the finish line and after saying they couldn't but they would call someone and I said no, I want you to (cause I didn't want them sending an ambulance). They started moving some things in their packed car and said there was room for one of us and Rog said, I'll hold her on my lap. No place for feet either - It was a sight because I had to roll in a ball to fit in on his lap. When they drove past June(about a mile later), we hollered to her that I was done and we would see her at the finish line. She had already heard that something was going wrong for her Mom. She just laughed and later told us there was something wrong with that picture - that we were coming to encourage her and had to have a ride in and she was still running. We got out at the stadium where the finish line was and waited for the girls to come in. 

Elisa had already come in with a 4:48 time and June came in around 6 hrs. They were exhausted of course and so was I but we sure had fun cheering them on. We were all glad that the day was over and racing was done and we could relax.