They ran...

I don't have any pictures loaded yet (I have to wait until my sister gets home and downloads them to share) but I've made it home from Grandma's Marathon weekend in Duluth, MN.

It turned into a terrible race day. Air temps topped 90 degrees and the humidity was through the roof. Bad all around for runners. The top male finished in 2 hours, 14 minutes, and 30 secs, top female in 2 hours, 33 minutes, and 39 seconds. Average time overall was 4 hours, 30 minutes, and 25 secs. A South Dakota runner that my sister was aquainted with was running with the Elite group to qualify for the Olympic Trials. He finished 13th overall and missed qualifying time by 3 minutes. He has another race or to to make it so not all is lost.

"Knowing" someone in the race was way different. All of us at the medical tent at mile marker 19 started yelling at him as soon as we saw him and he had no clue who we were. It was awesome. As he passed, my sister yelled out the special message from our acquitance and he gave us a smile and a thumbs up. We got all teary eyed! Marathon runners are crazy!

My favorite runner was a guy whose foot I took care of. He was 90% covered in skin grafts after having been severaly burned about 11 years ago. One of his graft sites on the botttom of his feet was split open. He had a blister parallel to it and I put a blister dressing over it and then. The graft edge was split open about a centimeter at it's widest point. I put four blister dressings down it's length to pull it together, taped around it to keep it on and put his sock back on and he was off. The guy was built like a brick shit house and amazingly good looking. Yes, good looking...skin grafts from head to toe and he was beautiful! I don't know his name, don't know if he finished, but something tells me he did!

My sister rubbed and rubbed on several runners to get cramps out. A couple had to pull out there but a lot more got back up after she was done and were back on the course. My aunt had a 50 something with chest pain and a bottoming out blood pressure so he got an IV and an ambulance ride. Overall a busy day and we were wiped out at the end.

On the home front, my own Grandma got her pacemaker and feels well enough to be grumpy! Mom is still at home, had chemo about four days ago and yesterday was pretty sick. Today she feels better.

Now a week with lots to get accomplished. I'll sit down later tonight and write my schedule out and it will be okay.