A Child Of Atom

Kid Flash is running the Marathon this morning. It's a beautiful day for it. The sky is clear, it is cool but not cold. I don't run, but if I did this is the kind of day I'd want to do it on. I'm trying very hard not to worry about it. He's been training for months. I was with him when he ran 22 miles, just shy of the 26.2 of the actual marathon, and he was fine. But still... I worry. It's part of my mother's legacy I guess.

So since I worry, you get to worry with me. I am going to live blog the marathon, and you can get updates as frequently as I do. I signed up to get text messages sent to my phone every time he crosses a 5K marker. (The runners wear RFID chips in their shoes that trigger every 5K.) He's not a competitive runner, he set a goal for himself of 9 minute miles, which should place his finish at just under 4 hours. The start gun was 10:10. Let's see how he does!

10:49am, First Update: Okay... the text messages don't really tell much. I need to see if I can get a map to post with this. Regardless, he has crossed the first 5K mark and he is averaging 8:58 a mile. That means, by my math at least, that he actually crossed the start line at 10:13.

11:54 Update: Okay... I'll admit, I freaked out a little bit. About 11:45 I realized that I hadn't gotten an alert in a while. In that amount of time he should have crossed two more. I called around to everyone else and no one seems to be getting the text alerts, so the system has failed! Argh. But... I checked the website and crossed the 10K mark after 55:40, so... doing the math he did those miles in 8:50... (I think... there's lots of minute to decimal conversion going on here...) and then he crossed 15K at 1:23:34... so that one is at 9:02, again, I think.

12:23 Update: Right. So I suck at math. The email versions of the Athlete Alerts are still working it seems, so I am having those forwarded to me now. At 10K he was pacing at 8:57, and at 15K he was also at 8:57. My boy is consistent!!

12:30: At 20K he's dropped time a bit, and is down to 9:08 a mile. This one I get by text message as well as email. A few minutes later at exactly 2:00:00 he crossed the halfway mark! His pace was still at 9:09, so a bit slower than start, but still consistent. At the other end of the race the competitive runners are finishing about now. The best time ever for the marathon is 2:07:43, and the best finisher last year was at 2:09:58.

12:57: He's dropped time a little bit again. 9:11 this time. But then, he's run more than a half marathon at this point, total 25K. It might include stops at a port-a-john, or anything, so no way to judge until he tells me. Still, in the end it's pretty consistent and within the range of what he wanted to do accomplish. I'm so proud of him!

1:23: At 30K he has been running for 2:50:56, nearly three hours, and he's 3/4s of the way through the race and his estimated finish time. He came in at 9:10 per mile this time, so he's picking up steam again.

1:41: 35K!! He's pacing at 9:11. Until now I'd gotten 3 of the 8 updates that I SHOULD have gotten at this point. After the most recent one though I've been getting all of the backlogged messages.

2:12: Almost there... at 40K or 24.85 miles hes been running for 3:50:42 and is currently pacing at 9:16. He only has a little over a mile to go so I expect that he will finish just at his desired time of 4:00. In 4 hours he'll have run a piece of all 5 NYC Burroughs, crossed 5 bridges, and run the length of Manhattan twice.

2:25 FINISHED!: He's done! He finished the whole race in 4:03:42, exactly where he wanted to finish. He should be looking for a train about now to get home and probably collapse into a hot tub, so I'm off to take care of him. How much prouder could I be?!