the one where I am an athletic supporter

Today was opposite day. Instead of me getting up early to run a marathon, it was my husband that set his alarm for 4:45am to tackle 26.2 miles. 

I made him pose like this..

We got to the Greenville Marathon start line with no problem. Found a parking spot nestled between the start and finish lines. Got onto the port-a-potty line before the hoards. I took the obligatory pre-race pictures...

I have to stand on my tip toes to take pictures with him

such a good runner... stretching before a race

Words cannot express how immensely proud of my husband I was today. I know how courageous you have to be to even stand at the start line of a marathon. I may or may not have teared up when the gun went off. 

I spent the morning wandering around Greenville and taking pictures of fall leaves. I cheered for friends of ours who were running in the half marathon. Eventually, after buying him a celebratory blueberry scone from the Great Harvest Bread Co., I made my way back to the finish line.  

I grabbed a spot on the curb and started cheering and continued cheering until I saw that maroon shirt and blue hat turn the corner. One look and I knew something was wrong. He was walking. Seth hates to walk while running. I took a deep breath, screamed "I love you!" as loud as I could and watched as he started to run again. 

Turns out my poor husband had vomited at mile 23. Like full on, in the gutter, liquid out the nose, vomit. Immediately, I was concerned. I read Runner's World. I know all about the dangers of dehydration and hyponatremia. Two conditions that can be fatal for endurance athletes. Only two things kept me from marching him to the nearest medic. 1. the color of his lips and face were good and 2. he was coherent.

About 15 minutes into our trip home, he threw up again. As I calmly pulled the car over and got out of the car, all I thought was "Well, I can either call 911 or get him back to the race medics." As I was trying to figure out how I was going to convince him that this was not a good situation, I handed him face wipes, a dish towel, and water to rinse his mouth out. Then I made him strip. All the wet clothes came off and dry clothes went on. Thankfully, as the dry socks went on, he began to feel better.

On the way home, we talked about the race and tried to work out what went wrong. Essentially, we concluded that, originally, he was over hydrated. Fearing that he wasn't drinking enough, he over drank and threw his body all out of whack. The vomiting and the nausea led him to become dehydrated. A double whammy. A super duper scary double whammy.

Thankfully, he seems to have recovered. Two servings of my homemade recovery drink, a blueberry scone, a nap, and a monster Subway buffalo chicken sandwich seemed to do the trick. He's appropriately tired and sore but not nauseous or dead.    

What lessons did we learn today? Trust your training. If you're carrying liquid, do not be swayed or tempted by  water stations. Trust your training. When you're vomiting on a race course and someone asks you if you need a medic, you should probably say yes. Most importantly, trust your training.          

No medal is worth a trip to the E.R.

By the way, even with the vomiting episode he still finished in 4:20. I know. You don't have to tell me. He's amazing. He's mine. Don't even think about it.