Kris Noorman | the journal

When Jake first told me he wanted to run a 25K, I think I said, “Not a 10K first?” Since he had never run more than a 5K, I thought it was a lofty goal to shoot for the 25K, more than a half marathon, when he’d never run more than a few miles at a time.

Then, he learned of the Fifth Third Road Warriors team and decided to put his name in to become a part of that group of ten, and, lo and behold, he went through the interview process and was chosen.

borrowed these pics from Jake’s facebook photos

When he became a part of the team, I had no idea I would not be seeing my husband very much for six months. He was training three, four, sometimes five days a week, and it was stressful at times. Especially causing extra stress on our checkbook for all the extra gas he had to use to drive an hour away for training and Saturday long runs and such. I tried to be supportive. I won’t lie. It was hard at times.

But as the months went by, he got stronger and stronger and lost around forty pounds. He was shrinking before my eyes. And he got excited about the longer distances he was running and the improved times. He was feeling better and more energetic every week.

I admit, I wasn’t as thrilled as he was. I felt bad because I wasn’t more excited for him. And that was in part because of the very tight budget we were now living on, he was gone a lot, and because I was doing no running of my own during the long winter months that dragged on and on this year.

As the day drew near, I could feel his nervous energy. He was more than ready, but he was on edge. I tried to lighten the mood by telling him he totally had this. I don’t think it really helped much.

The night before the big race, Jake spent the evening with his Road Warrior team, took a trolly ride along the race course, had dinner, was interviewed once again by “Maranda’s Where You Live” on local TV, and took part in a fashion show to model Brooks athletic apparel.

In the meantime, the kids and I were at my parents’ farm having a nice pot roast dinner with my family and my cousin Josh, his wife Karen and their cutie twin girls. They were up from Ohio for a visit and to come cheer Jake on at the race on Saturday. We had a great evening together. After dinner, we turned on the TV to watch Jake’s Maranda interview.

Jake was up very early and gone before we awoke at 5 a.m. My mom and Josh & family met at our house and we drove up to Grand Rapids together at 6 o’clock to find parking and make our way to the starting line to watch all the racers take off.

We got some coffee and found a place near the START line. The 5K was the first to go. They were released in waves and there were thousands and thousands of them. This was our first time as spectators of the race and the sight of the entire street just packed full of runners was very cool. The 10K took off at about 8am. Then at 8:20 it was Jake’s turn, the 25K. Over 6,000 runners participated in the largest 25K road race in the country. Amazing!

We thought we might not be able to see him since it’s really hard to pick people out of that crowd, but Karen spotted him and I got a couple (crooked) photos as I tried to shoot pictures and cheer him on at the same time.

After he was on his way, we knew we had a few hours. He was hoping to finish right around 3 hours. So, we went across the street to the Subway and got some snacks and drinks and warmed up (it was in the low 40′s and windy. brrrr!)

We took a walk along the Grand River next, across the pedestrian bridge toward Gerald R. Ford Museum, through the park there, then over to the blue pedestrian bridge. Grand Rapids has such a nice downtown area. It’s such a great small town big city, if that makes sense.



As we made our way to the FINISH line area, we could hear the crowd begin to cheer. People from the other races had been coming in, but the first runner from the 25K was about the cross the line, a runner from Kenya. We got there just about the time that he and the other elite runners finished. So fast. Like less than a 5 minute mile. That’s insane.

For a couple hours, we stood and watched runners come in and I texted with Jake’s sister’s, Heather and Brenda, as they were on the road, almost there, hoping they would make it in time to see him cross the line. They made it.

As the three hour mark approached, I started feeling this nervous anticipation building. We thought every runner with an orange shirt was him. We climbed up on a wall to get a better view. I kept zooming in with my 75-300mm camera lens to see. At about the 3 hr. 20 min. mark, we finally saw a little dot of orange down the street. It was HIM!!!

We cheered him across the line! He did it! He ran 15.5 miles, a longer distance than he had ever run before. The most he ran during training was 14 miles. What an accomplishment!

Jake came over to the fence, where we were standing, just as Heather, Brenda and Brenda’s boyfriend John were joining us.

We had to walk down quite a ways to be able to even hug him since they had this long chain link fence set up to keep the runners moving down and out of the way of the others that were coming in.

He hugged me and held on tight and started to cry. I squeezed him tighter still. I was so SO proud of him!

a friend of Jake’s took this picture. favorite!

It was a long six months of training and being away a lot of late nights and weekends and spending too much money on gas, but it was a huge accomplishment, something that helped him move into his 40′s much healthier than he ever was in his 30′s.

HE IS AMAZING!!!

So … now it’s my turn! Yikes! My mom started teasing that next year she will be in the bleachers taking pictures of both of us as we finish the 25K. Jake says we’re doing it. He’s going to start training me this year so that I can run it with him next year.

I’M ALL IN!