If I've figured this correctly, my Huntsville Rocket City Marathon this year will be my 20th marathon and will mark the 10th year of my running marathons. I like that those two big milestones will converge on my "home turf," so to speak. Rocket City was my first marathon back in 2001. I ran it again in 2004 and had some great memories the second time too. I'm also pretty happy with the two-marathons-a-year pace we've set over the last decade (Rick's had a similar number, maybe one less?). It's been a busy decade with starting our family, so it will be interesting to see how we do in our second decade of running. Rick thinks once you are close(r) to the 50 states that you may get excited and pick up the pace a bit, maybe even hitting some of the harder-to-travel-to states in a doubles weekend.
A little walk down memory lane...
Here Rick and I are running Rocket City together in 2001. John Christy is to the right. Rick and I were just friends when this picture was taken. It is our first picture together. We ran several miles together, then he left me. He headed to work right after finishing the race. I returned for the awards and randomly won the $1000 cash prize. It was an unforgettable day!
My second Rocket City. It was colder and rainy. Rick paced me and I ran with April Brass. I was competing in the Grand Slam that year and needed to finish Rocket City (plus 3 other ultras in town) in order to get a finisher's prize. It turned out to be a really nice duffle bag that I use for all of my weekend trips now.
Love it! What wonderful memories! Mine and Jason's relationship sort of kicked off at Rocket City - but he had to wait two+ hours for his crush to finish after he did. :) Ah well. I guess it worked out okay. Great pictures!
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