Run Forest Run!!!

So i am not a very good runner... i try, but with my legs/feet shaped and cocked funny, finding shoes that make running not painful (in a bad way) is a challenge. my husband however is insane! he loves running! him and Kyle decided to run a 20k this last weekend, and when i say decided, i mean they talked about it but were both too busy to work up for it. so they hadn't run in like 3 weeks when race day came along.

We had to set our Alarms for around 3:30 on a sunday..... let's just say the day started out with some texts along the line of "you awake Kyle?" "This is retarded" "yup"

We picked Kyle up at the barracks at nearly 4, he came down barefoot and without an ipod, so we sent him back up barefoot to grab his pod. He joked he was hoping to slice his foot open so he wouldn't have to go and he could go back to bed. in the parking lot of an infantry barracks, i'm surprised he DIDN'T slice his foot open. we drove the 40 minutes to the other side of the island (that is a FAAAR drive on this little island. i know mainland that is nothing.... but it's pretty ridiculous here) got the boys all checked in and ready to run, and then i settled in with my book for the race... it's about a 4 mile loop, so they passed me 2 times and on the third, they finished, so i was able to get some action shots :)

 here are the boys (with the matching yellow striped shorts.... ya i gave them crap for that) waiting for the horn to go off. they were originally going to go easy for the first mile to warm up... but when the horn sounded they had all sorts of motivation and just took OFF

 Rye making his first loop and feeling good!

 Kyle only a few minutes behind him.

 Riley on lap 2, i know the picture is blurry, but i love it!

 Kyle on lap 2, still only a few minutes back!

 There he is!!! finishing 6th in his age division, and 132nd overall (out of 700)

 Kyle finishing 8th in his age division and 152nd out of the 700

 cooling off

 yes they both have a piece of chocolate cake in their hand, the race provided all sorts of awesome snacks for them post-race

 these two are pretty much best friends, and they are two of the STRANGEST, and funniest guys i know

 he looks so skinny! and sweaty..... ewww

 ya, how cool is his number! this was his first race EVER, go Kyle!!!

 The results (the page they were on at least)

i love everything about this picture.
All in all it was a good morning, they were both glad they did it, and are excited about the next race they will be running. we spent the rest of the long weekend relaxing and napping.

There IS life after deployment, things for the Gardiner's have returned back to complete normalcy. people keep asking if Rye is different, and if going over there changed him. everything we do in life is going to change us, it's inevitable. we just have to have faith, and the right attitude to allow our experiences to better us rather than to effect us in a negative way. you can't look at this last picture and tell me that's not the same guy from a year ago, he is amazing. and every day i am grateful that i married him.

So congrats boys you guys did AWESOME, and i can't wait to be at your next race, camera in hand.