Wow! That was hard!

Sonja and I signed up for our annual 1/2 marathon and marathon. It was the Madison Marathon near Ennis, Montana. They promote it like this: "It starts at over 8,000 feet and goes way over 9,000 feet in several locations." Brandy had picked this event and we jumped on board after reading about it. Sonja graciously volunteered to ride the bike with the kids in the trailer and let me run since neither of us were ready to leave Ivan with anyone else as we all figured out his diabetes treatment. We both thought it would be easier riding the bike than running along the race route. It turns out we were wrong. The uphills were waaaay too steep and loose to ride up while pulling 100 pounds worth of kids, trailer, and gear. There were a lot of uphills. Sonja dragged the whole contraption uphill for quite a while. I passed them at mile three and did not see them again until they pulled up in the van behind me at mile 17. Luckily we had filled the gas tank, because they spent what felt like several days and nights following me as I finished the race. It took a while. I finished the race with my best place yet. Overall I finished 6th. There were six finishers total.

Ivan and Liza paced me near mile 20.

They also helped me across the finish.
I was almost as tired as they were.