Spectating at the Houston Marathon

Most of my Houston friends ran the Houston Marathon or Half, so I decided to go spectate and cheer for them.

Pre-race dinner was at Pronto Cucinino.

It was so Yummy and we had so much fun! I think I got my core workout for the day just from laughing so much!

Race morning Cassie and I met Chris and Ramona at Ingrid's. Chris made a life size cut out of Ingrid! It was awesome! We walked a couple blocks to the 5 mile mark and watched for everyone. The course was crowded and it was really hard to find the people we knew. We missed Matt (he sped by before we even started looking for him). We were annoyed to miss Matt, since the only chance we had to see the half marathoners was at mile 5. We almost missed Ingrid and Kim, but Ingrid saw her big cutout sign and started waving at us.

Ingrid was obviously having a great time!

We saw Lisa and Stacy, we missed John, Rick, Kathleen, Steph and Loanna. I could have sworn I saw Julie (from Kickrunners), but it was someone else named Julie who looked a lot like her. I even called her brother Kyle to tell him I'd just seen her. oops!

Richard ran by us and yelled "hey Heather" and then I finally saw him. I have no idea how I could have missed his bright neon yellow shirt! Richard ran with me for the last 6 miles of the 30k last month. He had a great race today, ran negative splits and was only a couple minutes off a PR.

Cassie's Houston Fit Yellow Fever sign. Cassie was a cheerleader in high school and it really came out today! She was awesome! We both had a 5 hour energy shot this morning, so maybe that was part of it too.

I guess I was a pretty good cheerleader too. I actually ended up with a couple blisters from cowbelling and this morning I barely have a voice! Cindy from Trizones is always saying you have to train for cowbelling, maybe she's right!

Cassie saw her friend Kelsey and ran onto the course to cheer for her. I think she may have scared Kelsey with all her enthusiasm!

Next we went to the 13 mile mark, it's a really pretty part of the course, but we got to this point about 2 minutes after Kim and Ingrid went by! We did see Steph at this spot and Cassie saw some of her Houston Fit friends.Next stop was the HRTC "Hoopla Station" at mile 24. We found Kathleen, she had finished her half and was cheering for the full marathoners. We also found Penny and David and Gillian.

Penny's husband John ran a sub-4 hour marathon!

The Statue of Liberty running!
Ramona made signs for Kim and Steph. I wanted to find something fun to put on a sign for the 24 mile stop. I found something that said "Your feet hurt because you are kicking so much ass" I put a variation of it on a sign and lots of people who came by smiled, laughed, and commented about it. Cassie and I were both really happy that people liked it.

Ingrid came by with the 4:30 pace group and looked great!

This was Ingrid's first marathon. She was hoping if everything went perfect to run 4:30, she ended up finishing in 4:29:23!! Nice job Ingrid!

Kim was just a couple of minutes behind Ingrid. She had a better race at San Antonio, but I think she still had fun today.

We also saw Rick, he did Poolsharks and a few Zephyr rides with us last season.

David and Gillian both did long runs today. Gillian actually did her longest run ever and then came out to cheer for everyone!

Cassie being the mega cheerleader!

Steph finished in 5:06, she looked great at mile 24 too! She said she wasn't feeling too great in the middle miles, but at mile 17 she started feeling better and really picked up the pace. Apparently, Loanna was just ahead of Steph, she saw us, but we missed her.

Ingrid showing off her medal at Onion Creek. We decided to go to Onion Creek for lunch, it was insanely crowded! And it took over 2 hours to get our food! At least I got to hang out with my Houston friends and hear about their races.

Steph post-race. She looks so happy!
Steph, Matt, and Cassie. Matt got a half marathon PR today! He said he was hurting pretty much the entire race and seemed surprised that he was able to get a PR.

I had so much fun spectating today! It made me even more excited for the 3M half next weekend and Austin in 3 weeks!