Ever since Dan has started running and racing, his goal has been to run the Mackinac Island Great Turtle Race 1/2 Marathon. He trained like a madman. The day finally came! Tom and Stephanie Smith wonderfully offered to watch the kids the WHOLE weekend so that we could enjoy ourselves on the island. Since Dan's car needs a muffler fix (it gives quite the headache!) we decided to rent a car. It was awesome! It was the cheapest car, but it had plenty of room, cruise control, and Sirius radio! That was fun! They had some great channels that never got static and hardly any commercials.
I'm not good at taking self-pictures. Beautiful drive though!
I've never been to the U.P. before, so we drove over the Mackinac Bridge into the Upper Penninsula. This bridge is crazy! It's a huge suspension bridge that is only held up by 2 tall posts. The road is made of grates that you can see the lake below when walking across and when the wind blows, you will sway too. Kinda freaky!
Dan and I on the top deck of the ferry. Did I mention that winter is coming? It was freezing!
A view from the ferry of the bridge we just crossed.
We found a good deal to stay on the island at the Murray Hotel. Thank goodness we were mostly going to spend time outdoors! This room was TINY! Just the necessities. Here is Dan showing the width of the room. He had maybe 1 1/2 -2 feet before he touched the other wall. We figure that it was probably a 8x10ft room. They did have a tv though. Once we figured to plug it in there was absolutely no volume. There wasn't much to do on the island once it got dark and the shops closed, so we asked the front desk (there was no phone in the room - guess that wasn't a necessity) if there was a trick to the tv, or would we have to read lips. They were very eager to fix the problem. First they thought that we must have been dumb or something and tried different ways to turn the volume on (which we already tried a couple times) and then nicely they took someone else's tv and gave it to us. That was very nice of them. We ended up watching all the Mackinac episodes of Dirty Jobs. It was quite fun not having to read lips.
What was also nice, was that they leave cookies by your bed at night and you can have all the hot cocoa that you desire.
While getting there a day early for the race, we decided to walk other parts of the island that I've never seen (for parts I have seen, please go to our last trip to M.I. here). Here's a view of a hunk by the shore.
The fort. It was closed (we always seem to come when it's closed).
The old fort on the highest spot on the island.
Arch Rock. This all used to be under water, then when the water receeded, this hole was left. It had been filled with a different kind of rock that wasn't the same as the rest (Dan the geologist can explain this tons better, sorry) and it eroded (? don't know it that's the correct term) leaving the hole.
View from Arch Rock
As we were walking (we walked several miles), through the forest we saw a lonely lamp-post. It was awesome! It made us think of the lamp-post in the Narnia series! We searched and searched then found that it was actually to light up a road on the other side. But from this point of view it was so cool!
Race Day
Pre-race! It was really cold. After this picture I put on my jacket and gloves. I knew it would be at least 2 hours before I saw Dan again, so I bunkered down in nice beach chair right by the shore to finish working on and reading for my sacrament talk for the next day. A beautiful place to do it!
In the mid-right of the picture you can see Dan in his maroon shirt. Off he goes! The neat thing was that his special number tag had electronic readers on it to calculate when you actually start and finish the race lines. That was really great, because there were almost a thousand crazy people running the 1/2 marathon, and it takes a while to get them herded to start!
Dan heading for the finish!
Dan crossing the finish, you can see the time when the race started, but his official time was 2:25:22! He did an awesome job!
Dan was wiped out! He ran the ENTIRE 13.1 miles! No walking! I'm so proud of him! This course had huge steep hills and dirt paths in it. He kept saying "People who do marathons are CRAZY!" He couldn't see turning around and doing it again. Yet a day later he tells me another 1/2 that he'd like to do, or to train for a marathon. I remind him what he told me about being crazy! :) Speaking of crazy, Dan told me that during the race there was a group of people running with silly hats. One of the guys during the first few miles of the race was acting silly and dancing about swinging his arms and totally whacked an unsuspecting runner in the face. Her nose started bleeding and wouldn't stop. The guy just says "oops, sorry" and takes off to finish the race. Dan asked if she was ok. She wasn't, she had to stop and turn around and go back to the start and quit. How sad. It's great to have fun, but not at the expense of others.
Dan with his race jacket and medal.
Dan did an awesome job! We are so proud of him and his accomplishments! The kids also had a great time (though Avery was sick and got Stephanie sick too), I'm sure the Smiths were happy to have the quiet of their home back. :) We love them and are so happy that they love to watch our kids. It was a great weekend.
