Greenville Marathon

One of the best parts of being married to a marathon runner is getting to travel to all of the different cities for the races. I get to be a tourist and a fan, without any of the pain that comes along with running 26.2 miles. Rob ran his 6th marathon a few weeks ago in Greenville, SC at the Spinx Run Fest. This marathon was similar to the marathon Rob ran in Burlington, Vermont in May 2009, which was one of my favorites. Both Burlington and Greenville are smaller but fun, walkable and unique cities with lots of little restaurants and shops. Very different from the huge Boston and NYC marathons, but to really appreciate those events I think you need to experience the smaller races as well. And when I talk about "smaller" marathons, I am not just focusing on the number of runners, but also how the race is planned/executed as a whole. For example, at this race we were able to drop Rob off less than a block away from the start about 10 minutes before the race started. After we dropped him off we waited by the start to watch him go by, and with less than 10 minutes to go before the start of the race, the 4 high school aged kids had not quite figured out how to raise the official Spinx Run Fest banner. Luckily they figured it out in time, or the runners would have all been ducking when they got to the banner.



Rob and I weren't alone on this marathon trip. My mom met us in Greenville Friday evening so that she could help cheer on Rob at the race Saturday morning. It was her first marathon experience and she loved it! It was great having another cheering buddy with me to keep me company during the race, and she was a big help when it came to directions and driving to mile 9/19 where we went to watch Rob go by because that is where the course made a loop and we could see him run by twice at the same spot. After seeing him at mile 19 we drove back into town and saw him at the finish line. One of the unique things about this race was that the finish was inside Fluor Field, Greenville's minor league baseball stadium that is a mini replica of Fenway Park!



Once again, Rob made me a very proud wife. Not just because I can't even picture myself running a 5k let alone a marathon, but because I see day in and day out all of the training and hard work he puts in in the months before the race. The 8:30pm dinners and 7am long runs on the weekends must have paid off, because he didn't just run the marathon, he dominated it. He beat his already impressive personal record by 3 minutes! He crossed the finish line in 3:05:35, finished 15 out of 436 runners, and got 3rd place in his age group. He is already planning his next marathon, which will probably be somewhere in Georgia this spring.