It's October and time for another day of cheering at the Marine Corps Marathon. This time it was on Halloween and I was armed with my purple witch hat and a very large Snoopy doghouse balloon that I was not happy about...nobody consulted me about the balloon and I couldn't see how it would fit on a crowded metro.
We were up at 3 am and in Virginia at the pre-marathon suite by 5 am. There were lots of anxious runners! It was still pretty chilly out when we walked over to where they would be starting the marathon.
My other sister, her friend and my nephew met up with me at Mile 10. Isn't Baby Nephew adorable in his lion costume? He was very interested in watching everyone run by.
There are always costumes at the marathon but there were more this year although still not as many as I expected. Our original plan was to wear costumes on the sidelines but in the end, all I had was my purple witch hat. 
We saw runners carrying flags, two barefoot runners, and a runner with one prosthetic leg. And we also saw these guys in fatigues carrying packs with extra limbs on the back. The one was missing an arm and it made me wonder if the others might also be missing legs. Every year there we see more and more wounded soldiers.After Mile 10 we headed for Dunkin' Donuts. My sister called when she was at Mile 12 and had some very not nice words to say when she heard we were at Dunkin' Donuts getting breakfast. We thought we had timed it right but we missed her at Mile 16. I was afraid I wouldn't catch her at Mile 22 either so I went straight to Mile 26 where I saw her run by just before the little hill up to the Iwo Jima Memorial -- only .2 more miles to go!!!
It was packed at the finish but we always have time for a picture. A very nice Marine took it for us. She didn't do as well as she had hoped and she had doubts she would be able to run the New Hampshire marathon the following weekend, but still, what an accomplishment! I'm so proud of her!