4h06m07

I must make a confession. I did not go only to Philadelphia to cheer Robert on his first marathon.

Actually I did something that some might consider illegal. I sold my Philadelphia Marathon bib to a fellow runner who did not sign up early enough and, therefore, would not have ran the race otherwise.

Normally I would not entertain this since for once my name would be attached to a race and time I did not run. What if the the person ran a 5 hour marathon? I would rather give up rather than finish with that time -- but one would never know. And what if he ran a Boston Qualifier time? I would never take a place that is not mine and righteously his. I would feel too guilty and not enjoy myself.

But I guess the current economic situation lead me to this decision. So I found myself at the Expo exchanging my bib packet for money. It felt shady and a tad lurid. I was glad, however, to meet my replacement and find out that he seemed genuinely a nice person. The exchange did not last more than 5 minutes and off we went our different ways.

I did see him one more time. During the race at the 13.1M mark, as I was cheering on runners I spotted my bib number among the hundreds of runners. It felt strange, should I have shouted out my name or his? Why was he physically able to run and not me? It did not feel fair.

He finished my race at 4h06m07, more than an hour slower than I was planning in running. And what will I do with the marathon certificate? What about he marathon pictures? Will he want to view/buy them, though officially everything to do with the race has my name?