Quad Cities Marathon Collage, originally uploaded by DebAnn18.
This past weekend Jason ran the Quad Cities Marathon. It was definitely a smaller marathon than many he has been to… and not the best organized, especially for me as a spectator. But overall he had a great day and a great race. You can read about his version of the race at his new running blog, afowl.com.
So this last Saturday Jason and his dad ran Grandma’s marathon in Duluth, MN. Jason had been checking the weather regularly and it was expected to be cool (65-70ish) and overcast on the race morning… Perfect weather for a marathon. He hoped to be under 3:20 for this race. Well race morning came, it was in the 80’s by 7am, and there wasn’t a cloud in sight! This was a point to point marathon and spectating at the start wasn’t easy so Jason’s family and I went to wait at the finish. We bought some scalped bleacher seats and started waiting. The half marathoners eventually started coming in… A few had to be taken across the finish in stretchers and wheel chairs… and that is only the ones that made it close enough to the finish for us to see, I am sure many more went down earlier in the course. I was supposed to recieve text messages as Jason went along but those werent working, but the tracking website was working so thanks to my iPhone I could track his progress there… At the 10k mark he was a little behind on pace but not horrible, the next time I could track him was at the half marathon point… and he was further behind… with each subsequent tracking point (20miles and 25miles) his predicted finish time got later and later… I knew he must be miserable out there, after all I was sweating uncontrolably sitting in one place. Well he finished alive and on his own two feet, I was very proud. His time was 3:45, still impressive to me but not quite what he was hoping for. His dad ran this marathon as well and finished with a time of 5:11, also very inmpressive for his first marathon and in the incredible heat…. The next morning Jason went running on his own and ran another 26.2 in 3:24, just to prove to himself that the bad time had so much to do with the weather and not him… He can be stubborn that way…
Now onto the aftermath…. Monday morning we wake up in WI ready to head back to Iowa, Jason was feeling horrible… very sick. So I drove the whole way home and let him sleep and rest in the car… I am one of those people who come from the school of toughing it out… so other than making sure Jason had what he needed I didn’t worry too much… Between Monday and today he had been having lots of ups and downs… Of course the downs come after clinic hours… Well, we decided to call the 24hour nurse line available through student health, and she recommended we go in immediatly…. so tonight (I guess technically last night) we went to the ER. They did a great job of getting us in and starting treatment quickly, I was impressed. They took blood, urine and stool… Gave him IV hydration and nausea meds… blood and urine told them he was dehydrated and low on potassium, some pills and the IV helped with that… they think he might have rotavirus but we won’t know for sure for a day or two… so now he has meds to keep him from vomiting and we just need to try to stay on top of his hydration until this all passes…
This weekend Jason ran in his third marathon, it was approximately one year later that his first marathon which was in Potsdam, Germany. The improvements he has made as a runner are so incredible, 3 years ago he could barely run one mile without getting sick… and look where he is today.
Here his is at the hotel shortly before the walk over to the marathon start line.
I have to say that as a spectator this marathon was poorly organized… At least for people who had family running in both the marathon and half marathon.
Below is the starting line up for the half marathon and a picture of Jason’s dad just getting started.. he is half covered by the girl in green, he has a red shirt on. And below that is Jason’s dad and friend Sara finishing the half marathon in about 2 hours 15 minutes. Not a bad time since he is recovering from shin splints… what the heck is that exactly anyway? 
Below is the only picture I have of Jason finishing the marathon… Why is that? Because he was 10 minutes earlier than expected and I wasn’t paying attention… so I almost missed him! His goal was to finish around 3 hours 20 minutes, 5 minutes faster than his previous marathon… but he finished in 3:06:59 seconds!
So why is this totally awesome! Because to qualify for the Boston Marathon he needed a time of 3:10… and he totally beat that! And he just totally rocked it in general.. his chip time was faster than the fastest female! He was 10th out of 163 in his age division and 46 out of 1,542 finishers! I was so proud of him! His brother got a video of him finishing and in the background I am so shocked that all you can hear is me SHREAKING about him qualifying for Boston! Here is the link to the video.. turn down volume if you don’t want to hear my screaming!
