Marathon Runners

Over the weekend we were visited by a couple of friends up from Florida who were participating in Marine Corps Marathon (MCM) activities.  One of them ran the marathon, and two others ran in the 10K event that accompanied it.  Congrats to Bill, Dodi, and Galen!

I also rec'd a letter over the weekend from a service buddy, Dale, who ran in the Chicago Marathon in October.  Dale ran for a cause, to raise funds for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.  Dale reports his personal best time of 4:11:56 for the marathon, his third; but even better, he was able to raise over $3K for the cause - he did this to honor his sister Nickie, who's life was taken by Burkitt's Lymphonma in 2004.  I was honored to be a part of his efforts.  Congrats to Dale, and thanks for keeping me posted on the results.

Galen mentioned that he has a website called http://www.marathonmedals.com/ , which is designed to allow people to post their marathon medals from past events.  I told him I had run in Berlin in 1983 and he invited me to submit some of my old stuff.  Because I have fresh scans, I am including the materials I sent him here - they haven't been posted yet on his site.

Included were:

• Scan of the "reverse" of the 1983 medal
• Scan of the route map published in the base newspaper
• Scan of my finish "proof" photo (my friend and marathon training partner Shybuck is seen finishing in the background in red)

All this inspires me.  But I don't yet know what I would do with that inspiration.

One thing I do know, seeing the Berliner Kindl ad in that photo...