Thursday long run

Cameron's older (by 15 months) brother Brandon, who is 8, had a balloon valvuloplasty done Tuesday at St. Francis Hospital to help relieve his aortic stenosis that he has had since birth. The surgery was a huge success, and Brandon was released from the hospital Wednesday morning. He must remain inactive for the next 30 days as he recovers, but then will have no restrictions, which means he can start running again. This is only a temporary fix to his condition though, and over time, the stenosis will worsen again. However, the cardiologist hopes he will be fine now for another 5-10 years before intervention will again be necessary.

So, after not running for a few days, today seemed like the perfect day for Cameron and I to do our 9 mile long run as we prepare for our early May half marathon. The temperature reached a record high of 81 this afternoon, but the cold front was through, and the wind had shifted to the northwest by the time we headed out around 5 pm. We ran on the River Parks west bank trail today, starting just northeast of the upper parking lot at Turkey Mountain, at the bottom of the relatively steep hills, and ran north for 4.5 miles into a fairly stiff headwind. We hit the turnaround a little over 600 meters north of the Pedestrian Bridge, and returned south aided by a nice tailwind. Cameron ran off and left me in the final few hundred meters, and finished the 9 miles in 1:39:45. Cameron's distance of 9 miles brings his monthly total to 52.8 miles, and his yearly total to 90 miles.

Had darkness not set in, I know Cameron would have completed a marathon, so we are just going to say that he ran a marathon in a world record time of 1:39:45. Cameron is an honest 7-year old kid, and I hope they count this as a world record because had daylight allowed, he would have finished the marathon. In case you are wondering why I am saying this, check out:

http://blogs.kansascity.com/tvbarn/2009/02/the-biggest-los.html

I especially like Dean's wife Carli's comments:

"Hi! I'm Carli Patterson wife to the biggest loser contestant Dane Patterson. I had herd about your post and wanted to give you an explanation of what happened. I am so proud of my husband and his accomplishments. This has been an amazing experience for our family and unfortunatly this marathon has been a little exaggerated. In this industry you are always on a time frame and sometimes it is out of your control. We had stopped along the way to film at a water station and to make up for lost time our producers drove us ONLY 3 miles up the road. I am sorry if this has offended you in any way, but we are still incredibly happy about the 23 miles we ran. We were not listed as completing the marathon. Dane is an honest LDS Dad and I hope that they do say he completed this marathon because had time allowed he would have!"

Any runner who saw the show this past Wednesday knew immediately that something was amiss with Dean supposedly running a marathon in 3:53. Hopefully, the show will air a correction and clarification at the start of next week's episode.