Half Marathon Sunday Schedule

On Sunday Angel ran his 2nd half-marathon of the year. This meant alarms set at 4:00 a.m. to wake us up so that we could get ready and head out to the race venue. I was a little bit hesitant about waiting for him all alone in the complete darkness of downtown, so asked a sister and a few friends to join--this was the first time that I've had a whole crew to wait with when cheering Angel on at a race, and that was pretty fun!

We counted down to the 5:30 a.m. beginning of the race, and waved as he took off on his very long run, and then settled down to wander the area in the dark while Angel was off running 21 km.

There were a whole lot of painted bears set up in the park adjacent to the start of the race course--The Buddy Bears, one represents each country in the United Nations, so we spent most of our time looking at each bear and choosing our favorite designs.

(We took photos of the bears later, after the race, when it was finally light) You can probably guess that this was the bear representing the USA!

Singapore is the orange bear in the middle, that was my favorite pattern. Sierra Leone on the right and Slovakia on the left, I believe.

And here's a question for Canada because...guys, your bear is just a bunch of blue and gray and tan pixels. Why, Canada? What's up with that? Or, if there is some special meaning, how do these pixels represent your country?

We returned to the finish line about 10 minutes before we thought Angel might be showing up, and waited patiently and cheered when he finished! He was hoping to run this one faster than his last marathon, but ended up about a minute slower, however, he was in much better shape after this race than after his last one. After the last race he was limping badly and couldn't walk well for several days--he had bruised and blistered feet. After this race he was a little tired but totally his normal self.

1 hour and 42 minutes. He came in 20th in his division (Junior Veteran--we laughed a great deal about the seemingly oxymoronic name of the division for 30-39 year old men), and 55th place overall in the race, with more than 1000 running.

Since he didn't place high enough to need to stick around for the prize ceremony, we headed off a few minutes after he got back (and after we showed him our favorite bears). I snapped this photo of a cool ship as we headed back to our car. I think I'll always have a little bit of a pirate's appreciation of ships.

The half-marathoner and fans stopped for breakfast at market before going home, and I was so happy that we were there at the right time to get pancakes! I love these delicious pancakes, but rarely get to eat them because we usually go to market for groceries earlier than the pancake man arrives.

After market, we headed home for showers, and napped for a bit before getting up, getting ready, and going to church! Granted, we arrived late, but the sermon went 45 minutes longer than it's technically 'supposed to', so it all evens out.

After church, Angel and I took the family out to lunch, and nefariously ordered all of our own favorite dishes at the restaurant while we were waiting for them to show up, which explains why there were not one, not two, but three types of chicken (cashew chicken, marmite chicken, and black pepper chicken)--along with my favorite fried egg dish and a plate of choi sum. We did order the fish curry in honor of them, though, because neither of us like fish curry.

After lunch it was back home and then Angel was off to work to teach a class. I had time to rest and read for a little bit before heading downstairs to help get everyone ready for family photos. We timed our departure for family photos perfectly so that we could meet Angel at his workplace and he could follow our car to the photo location--there wasn't much daylight left in the day and none of it can be wasted when you're taking Christmas card photos!

After all the photo-taking (an ordeal, and a blog post, in itself!), everyone went to McDonald's for ice cream cones. I went, but did not get any ice cream, because that's the kind of person I am.

So, there's a Sunday for you. The kind of person Angel is, is apparently the kind of person who runs a half-marathon, has breakfast with friends, goes to church, takes the family out for lunch, goes to work to teach a 90-minute class, joins the family photo session, and goes out for ice cream--all in the same day.

How was your Sunday?