Today is my dad's 55th birthday and because he's so cool, he decided to run a marathon! Since my race season is over, I got to spectate alongside mom and cheer him on as he has done for me so many times. I also joined him for the last 4.5 miles! I was running a bit slower than my normal pace, but it was one of the coolest running experiences I've ever had. As we were nearing the finish, I was getting goosebumps and catching the ever-growing knot in my throat. I tried to combat this by pushing dad to run harder and finish strong. In reality, this probably made the knot even bigger because of how strong he finished: a Boston qualifying time of 3:28:18. This is exactly 2 minutes faster than he ran at the Grand Rapids Marathon last year! Race announcer extraordinaire, Larry Crabbe, even gave dad a birthday shout out as we crossed the finish line and after the race we celebrated with a delicious cheesecake (dad's favorite!) from Rise Grand Rapids. There really are no other words for this run we shared (and on his birthday no less) so I will let the pictures do the talking. One proud son here.
