St. George Marathon -Warning: Viewer Discretion is Advised

Last Friday afternoon we loaded up the car and drove down to St. George to watch my dad finish in his 3rd St. George Marathon and 29th Marathon Finish overall. He'd trained really well and was hoping to finish in under 3 hours and 45 minutes to qualify for the Boston Marathon again. Saturday morning we had breakfast with my mom and then walked down to the finish line with the boys and a big sign that said "Go Pop!" for Tyler to hold. As 3:45 approached we watched for my dad down the shoot of runners. Finally we see his white microfiber shirt and recognize his running stride in the distance. As he approaches we see that the side of his face is covered in something red. We say "Is that blood?" There are no cheers from my dad's fan party, just looks of disgust and gasps from the crowd -"Look at that poor man, he's bleeding everywhere." One person behind us says "I saw that man at mile 16. He's been bleeding a long time." Jaw dropped and shocked we quickly walk to the First Aid tent.
I ask a volunteer if a man bleeding from his head came in. She says he did come in but just looked around and then left. It figures - my dad wouldn't have the patience to wait. We finally find him in the crowd and despite his bleeding body he doesn't look too bad. He said the First Aid tent said he'd probably need stitches, but otherwise he felt ok. He'd been running with a tight group and he'd tripped over someone's heal on a downhill and fell face first. He had fallen at mile 3! He'd run for 23.2 miles with a bleeding head, arms, legs and finger. The rest of his running group had begged him to stop but my dad wanted to keep going and left them all on a big hill around mile 9.
As we walked through the crowd to find our way back to the hotel we heard whispers from the crowd of "Did you see that poor man?" "He's bleeding from his head" "He must have had a bad fall." Tyler's only response was "Pop bonked." After a good shower we drove over to the urgent care clinic and my dad spent the next 2 hours soaking his wounds and getting 6 stitches above his eye and more in his pinky finger. And as if he hadn't drawn enough attention to himself the nurses put bright green bandages around all of his wounds but his head.


In the end he was 4 minutes shy of his qualifying time for Boston. He'd lost some time with the fall. However we're glad he survived without too much permanent damage. It makes for a good story and its a testament to either my dad's perseverance or stubbornness. You decide.