Joe is now a marathoner.

He ran the Scenic City Trail Marathon on Raccoon Mountain in Chattanooga yesterday, and from what he said, it was a pretty grueling course. The trail took runners up and down steep hills, stumbling over tree roots and skirting branches that were across the course. I can’t recap the race as well as Joe can, so make sure you head over to his blog.

Joe was super excited when we arrived at the race site, and he wasn’t too nervous. He didn’t do much of a warm-up like he did last year for the half marathon because, as he said, the first 13.1 miles are a warm-up.

Last year, the marathoners started farther up than the half marathoners to make up the correct distance. This year, all the racers started out together. I didn’t really understand why they changed that, but it was good for me because I was able to get pictures of Joe starting out, even though they did turn out blurry.

And then, we waited. I was alone for the first three hours or so until my brother arrived to keep my company. About a half hour later, Joe’s family showed up.

Joe had expected to finish around 12:30 p.m., which would have been a 4:30:00 time, but it ended up taking him longer for several reasons. First, it’s a trail marathon, not a street marathon, and the terrain makes it much tougher which takes a lot longer. Joe said most runners were walking up the hills and then running the downhills and the flat areas. And, since part of the course wasn’t marked like the runners had been told, Joe and a group of other runners went a few miles in the wrong direction before hitting the highway and realizing they weren’t on the right trail.

One of my proudest moments was watching Joe cross the finish line.

The first thing Joe did after finishing was give me a BIG hug. I wore an old shirt on purpose so he could hug me with his sweaty clothes. Then, Joe kissed Smudge through my belly. It was so sweet. While we were waiting, we saw several toddlers run up to their dads after they finished screaming, “Daddy!” and giving them big hugs. It made me smile because it made me think about how next year, we’ll have a 6-month-old watching his or her daddy finish the marathon. And, that was what I thought of when Joe kissed Smudge.

The race results were posted today, and they had Joe listed as finishing last, even though we both knew there were runners behind him. It turns out, 26 out of the 79 registered marathon runners didn’t finish, which is a 67 percent finish rate. That’s means one-third of the marathoners didn’t finish. In fact, Joe said he didn’t see a man he ran with for a while on the list of finishers. Knowing how many racers dropped out makes me so much more proud of Joe for finishing. He’s my hero.