Devils Lake Marathon - Joy's Perspective

Here are some of my pics from Ben's latest marathon.  If you haven't already read his account of the event, you should!  

Here we are, bright and early, at the 6:30 am start of the race. Thankfully, the race was on Central time, so it didn't feel as early. Ben is wearing a neon green/yellow shirt with a white hat (on the left). After many years of trying to find him in a crowd, I finally got him a bright shirt to wear. It makes it a little easier to spot him from a distance.  

Here he is coming up to the first aid station, Roadkill.  It was named Roadkill because the trail crossed a main road and the race coordinators did not stop traffic, so the runners had to wait if a car was driving by. At this point Ben had just come up the first large hill, but he was feeling great, and he didn't stop long.  Laney really wanted to run with him when she saw him, but dogs weren't allowed on the course.

The next stop was at Steinke Basin.  I almost missed Ben since it was only 1.5 miles from the last stop.  Ben felt great and stopped for a quick snack.

Feeling good!

The next time we saw Ben was at the Lake Aid Station.  Here we got to chat a little longer, since he stopped to have a quick lunch of a turkey burger and some coconut water.

Laney was so excited to see Ben, she had to get as close as possible. Thus, the reason she is sitting on the picnic table.

After this, Laney and I did some hiking in the park.  We were planning on meeting up with Ben at the last few aid stations, but our hike took longer than I thought it would.  Since I didn't have a good idea of where he was in the race, I decided it would be best to head back to the finish line and wait for him there.   It was a good thing we did, because we didn't have to wait very long.  Soon, we spotted Ben coming around the corner with a determined look on his face.

I found out later, that Ben had been running behind the gentlemen in the white (above and on the left) for the last 4 miles and Ben was determined to finish before him.  The pic below is of Ben running hard to catch his competitor in the final stretch of the race.

And he did it!  There was an exclamation from the crowd as Ben passed his fellow marathoner.  I don't think the guy knew Ben was coming so fast behind him.

It was a great race and a beautiful day.  Also, just so you know, the clock in the pic above was for the 50M and 50K, not the marathon.  So proud of Ben for finishing and running so well!