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Today was the St. George Marathon and boy was it a long day… But it gave me a good chance to try out different settings on my camera… I’m making up a special Photobucket album for my shirtless guy ones… One thing I would like to add is that some guys look awesome without a shirt, and well, in a nice way other’s DO NOT! The Marathon took place in my back yard literally… I live right off of the route… My back door leads to the street that they run on… It was a nice day for eye candy… But it was also a great day to think about what a person can do and how they can push themselves to succeed if they really want it bad enough… I will mention a few of the special moments… But there were thousands I’m sure if you got to talk to those who participated…

1. There was this guy in a wheel chair that was made for racing… He couldn’t complete the race along because he didn’t have the strength… As he hit our part of the route and only 1.4 miles away, someone was pushing him and helping him succeed and complete the St. George Marathon… What I learned from this is that no matter how handicapped we are or how bad things are, we can succeed… Even if we need some help to get there and cross the finish line… I guess I see symbolism in a lot of things… And this is what I was able to learn from this guy who you would normally think he lost everything because he can’t walk… But then, he has everything when I think longer about it… He has good friends, and a will that drives him forward… He is a winner in my book…
2. There was this little girl who was 10 years old that ran the Marathon with her mother… Another guy that was running and probably didn’t know her was so impressed and humbled by this girl that he asked us all to cheer her on… See most of the people left our area and went to the finish line since whoever they came out for was about to finish… We were the only ones left… We cheered her on and the joy on her face gave her an extra boost of energy… She was walking until she got to us… Once she knew we were cheering for her, she picked up her pace and she and her mom hand in hand headed towards the finish line together… They are winners in my book too…
3. There was an older gentleman that was from LA… He was so proud of himself that he finished… He wanted to make sure I took his picture… His name is Walter and he is 72 years old… So many people who joined in today’s race demonstrated that age is nothing but a number… From young to old, they all ran the race and did the best they could do and all are winners… Even if they never crossed the finish line, they still got out there and tried… They didn’t let anything or anyone stop them from doing what they wanted and needed to do…
4. The very last group of people was heading down the stretch… First there was a woman walking… She couldn’t run because it looked like she blew out her knee or something similar .. She was bandaged up and had a brace on her leg… She was going slowly… She said she was the last one that they let complete the race before shutting the barricades… All runners had to be past a certain point by 1:00… From what her number said, her name is Madison… But she limped her way to our street and we told her she is doing awesome and that she only had 1.4 miles to go… She was going to make it… I could tell she was choked up and wanted to cry… For her this was a major accomplishment…
5. About 10 minutes later the last guy was coming… He was a pretty large guy… I would say well over 400 pounds… He was slow and go and eventually his friends or family joined him… They walked with him on the last stretch .. You could tell how proud they were of their friend or family member… They were beaming .. We told him how far it was and he said he was going to make it…
6. There was this one gross moment and it was just nasty… I wonder if people even think that others are watching… But this guy decided that he needed to blow his nose… OK, yes, we all have to do that… But it was just nasty because he pushed on one side of his nose and out came snot all over the ground… That was just not cool… I did take a picture of him since he was in the race and finished… But yuck.. He was caught in the act of doing this dastardly deed…

Over and over again for the last half hour, we had runner after runner thank us for sticking around and cheering them on since everyone else was gone… Even though I was very tired, I was proud and happy to know that I got to witness this and help someone by giving them the motivation they needed to go on… Overall it was a very entertaining day that was filled with laughter, success, oddities and inspiration…  It was also a very exhausting day, but that was OK… I got to spend it with friends and family… Jessica, JJ, Craig, Lisa and Evelyn came over to spend the day with me while I did my thing and they helped keep me awake… The one negative point to today was that some joker let a guy come into the race with a Lakers jersey on… Now what in the heck were they thinking… I did think the guy with the crazy hair that looked like Doc from Back to the Future was hilariousness, lol…