Marathon to Marathon with Team Bridge

Today was the big day that all these people had been training for. The marathon to Marathon (a town almost exactly 26.2 miles away!) and we had a team of people running the marathon, half marathon, relay race, and 5K. It was an incredible morning of adrenaline and energy and fun...at least, speaking from a cheerleaders perspective;). Ryan trained to run the full marathon and after driving the course yesterday, I got nervous about how far the distance was-and I wasn't even running!

This team was raising money for the youth summer Bridge programs in Storm Lake (click here for more info: The Bridge of Storm Lake)It was both for an incredible cause, but also, these guys got into shape as they took the time and effort to train and get their bodies conditioned for their runs.

Here they are at 5:45 AM...look at all the smiles so early in the morning! Lol. 

Here's the ten mile checkpoint. This is the first place we kinda camped out at to cheer for the team. We had a great cheer team...we were all surprisingly wide awake and excited! this was around 7:30ish in the morning. we enjoyed a breakfast of donuts, fruit snacks, juice bags, and bananas while watching the runners go by.

(they were all trying to get to the last powdered donut...Abraham got it...if you could see close up, they all have white powdered lips:))

and here we are waiting at the 20 mile marker! Nellie knew the lady who was running the drink stand and even put up a sign for Renato to cheer him on!! 

Here's are some pics of the cheerleaders and all our yummy goodies:) It was so much fun cheering with these guys!

and here are the runners:) 

Jay...everytime he'd run up, his kids would yell and cheer, "Daddy!!! DaDA!!!! DAD!!!!" it was really motivating...even to us on the sidelines...lol...you can see Lily and Maggie jumping up and down yelling.

 Renato...he always ran by with a new friend that he'd made on the course!:) Each time we saw him, he was running and chatting with someone new! And Nellie and Abraham joined him as he drank his gatorade:). 

we definitely knew how to cheer these marathoners on! As they passed by, the stand beside us were offering gatorade, bananas, oranges, gu, grapes, and water...and we were all munching on hot cheetos, doritos, fruit snacks, and sour cream and onion chips...lol...we gained the calories that the runners burned:)

and of course, when ryan came by, I had to join him for some of the marathon action...do i look like i broke a sweat? :) It was so great to see him at the 20 mile point...i was so proud of him!

 here are our future marathon runners...we all liked to look like we ran in the race;)

 and the proud moments of finishing the race! 

Jay

Renato

Ryan

Here's me and my stud after he finished the marathon! I still can't believe he ran all that way...i'm so so so proud of him! He fought through some major cramping, but still finished and made it all the way! I'm so impressed;)

 this is a majority of the team...some left before we got a chance to take this pic...Nellie and I had tried to catch some pics of the half marathon and 5K runners at the checkpoints we were at, but we missed them by like twenty minutes...so here's a glimpse of some of them. We're missing some of the relay guys, and some half marathon girls.

 here are the marathon runners waddling to the cars afterwards. we got a huge kick out of the three of them stiffly waddling from side to side;)

Praising God for such a successful and fun day! The weather was perfect for the runners, and it didn't start to rain til they all finished. We didn't have any injuries and they all finished their races! God is so good! And for those of us that got to cheer and take pics (and eat:)), it was such a fun fun fun day of seeing our guys accomplishing a major goal, and seeing the whole team serving our Savior through this run! whoo! I'm so thankful and was so blessed by the day.

Way to go, Team Bridge!!!!!!