This is what the race is all about: honoring those who survived the original Bataan Death March during WWII. The man above is one of the survivors who is still living 68 years later. We got to see several at the starting line and shake the hand of another at the end.
This picture was taken during the opening ceremony. The sun was starting to rise, and we could see the snow on the tops of the Organ Mountains in the background.
I took the above picture to show Basia just how many people were doing the march. She loves to see soldiers, so she would have loved to have seen this sea of soldiers. There were around 5,750 people participating in this march.
There are several wounded soldiers who participated. I don't know if the man above is a wounded soldier, but it was inspiring to see him marching ahead of us.
Oh, how I wish this picture would have turned out better. You can see Jon and James and another man walking toward the bushes. What you cannot see clearly is the long row of men standing in that desert brush, uh-um, relieving themselves right off the path. The women had to wait in very long lines at porta-potties while the men formed their own lines and went all at the same time. We later saw men who barely left the trail and one particular man who did not even really turn his back to the trail. Hey, I said I was sharing experiences, and this was one of them!
Here you can see the long line of marchers in front of us as far as the eye can see. The same could be seen behind us.
Again, I wish this picture had turned out better. There was a man carrying a Texas flag ahead of us for quite a while. We are New Mexicans (for a few more months) who were raised to be a little anti cocky-Texas-flag-wavers. Jon was making his move to de-flag the guy, or so we wanted the picture to seem. The guy moved to the other side of the path to get away from the crazy New Mexican.
Isn't it cool to see little kids doing a marathon? Brishen found out that the minimum age is 9, so he wants to do it next year. Does anyone have any idea how much you would have to feed a boy who is about to go through puberty AND training for a marathon? I'm not sure I could cook that much.
Here is Jon's hideous, free, snowman sweatshirt. He got it when doing a community walk a few years ago. He wears it even though it has a snowman in a snowglobe on it. I do not like to be married to a man in a snowglobe sweatshirt. I've begged him to throw it out (Basia, Brishen, and I donated ours to charity right away). He finally threw it away this week. Then he dug it out of the trash, had me wash it, and wore it one final time to the race. He then did me proud by leaving it in a thorn bush, where he will never see it again. Now the race volunteers will find it and find a new home for it, unless the thorns won't let go. I'm just glad that I will never see it again.
Why, oh, why are we marching so many miles? Or is that, "y, oh, y"?
We had a beautiful view of the snowy Organs!
Here's Jon in the famous "sand pit" between mile 20 and 22. It really is not fun to walk through sand at that point in the march, but the sand was not as deep as I remembered it to be nor as deep as some would have you fear.
This is what the race is all about: honoring those who survived the original Bataan Death March during WWII. The man above is one of the survivors who is still living 68 years later. We got to see several at the starting line and shake the hand of another at the end.
This picture was taken during the opening ceremony. The sun was starting to rise, and we could see the snow on the tops of the Organ Mountains in the background.
I took the above picture to show Basia just how many people were doing the march. She loves to see soldiers, so she would have loved to have seen this sea of soldiers. There were around 5,750 people participating in this march.
There are several wounded soldiers who participated. I don't know if the man above is a wounded soldier, but it was inspiring to see him marching ahead of us.
Oh, how I wish this picture would have turned out better. You can see Jon and James and another man walking toward the bushes. What you cannot see clearly is the long row of men standing in that desert brush, uh-um, relieving themselves right off the path. The women had to wait in very long lines at porta-potties while the men formed their own lines and went all at the same time. We later saw men who barely left the trail and one particular man who did not even really turn his back to the trail. Hey, I said I was sharing experiences, and this was one of them!
Here you can see the long line of marchers in front of us as far as the eye can see. The same could be seen behind us.
Again, I wish this picture had turned out better. There was a man carrying a Texas flag ahead of us for quite a while. We are New Mexicans (for a few more months) who were raised to be a little anti cocky-Texas-flag-wavers. Jon was making his move to de-flag the guy, or so we wanted the picture to seem. The guy moved to the other side of the path to get away from the crazy New Mexican.
Isn't it cool to see little kids doing a marathon? Brishen found out that the minimum age is 9, so he wants to do it next year. Does anyone have any idea how much you would have to feed a boy who is about to go through puberty AND training for a marathon? I'm not sure I could cook that much.
Here is Jon's hideous, free, snowman sweatshirt. He got it when doing a community walk a few years ago. He wears it even though it has a snowman in a snowglobe on it. I do not like to be married to a man in a snowglobe sweatshirt. I've begged him to throw it out (Basia, Brishen, and I donated ours to charity right away). He finally threw it away this week. Then he dug it out of the trash, had me wash it, and wore it one final time to the race. He then did me proud by leaving it in a thorn bush, where he will never see it again. Now the race volunteers will find it and find a new home for it, unless the thorns won't let go. I'm just glad that I will never see it again.
Why, oh, why are we marching so many miles? Or is that, "y, oh, y"?
We had a beautiful view of the snowy Organs!
Here's Jon in the famous "sand pit" between mile 20 and 22. It really is not fun to walk through sand at that point in the march, but the sand was not as deep as I remembered it to be nor as deep as some would have you fear.
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