You guys, has that cloning thing happened yet? Does a Time-Turner exist outside of the pages of Harry Potter? What about a TARDIS?

No, huh?

My dear friend, Rachel, ran her second (and she swears LAST) marathon this weekend: the Marine Corps Marathon. As soon as she told me she was tackling the distance again, I was hoping that I’d be able to be there to cheer for her. Once I realized what weekend it was (Victoria and family were coming to visit – YAY), I realized that I’d be cheering from afar.

Thankfully, I’ve had practice in cheering for people running races from a distance!

I signed up for text message alerts for her race and anxiously awaited that first text telling me that she started the race.

BUT IT NEVER CAME.

So, I just started inundating her with my cheering “signs” and hoping for the best (because I’m persistent!).

This was “our song” during the Shenandoah half.

Around this time, she texted to let me know that she was running but not getting alerts either. I did a little sleuthing and found the MCM app for my phone. From there I was able to see her location (although not reliably) and I knew she was at the 10k mark.

As she got further along in the course, she had to hit certain cut off points and times and she did it. I knew that it was getting more challenging for her and she had to deal with a setback when she had an asthma attack. Still she pushed onward!

Rachel really, really likes cats.

Made this one while I was in the parking lot at the dollar store.

Finally the alerts decided to work (near the end, which worked out well). When I knew she crossed the finish line, I bombarded her with GIFs! Like this one:

And this one:

I was just listening to the most recent BibRave podcast and Bart Yasso relayed a story in which Sarah Reinertsen said “Never take a finish line for granted” and I know that Rachel gave this race everything she had yesterday. Rock star status!

This weekend was a huge racing weekend so to all of you who got it done yesterday: I’m proud of you, my friends! Whether it a training run or a race, I’m always cheering for you.