Chicago half Marathon

It was my brothers first half mary. He was nervous and did not have confidence in himself so I ran with him. We have been training for about 6 weeks but he could have used more training. I had been busy with triahtlon training and could not help him out. When my season was over we met on the weekends for the long runs. I gave him some training plans from Hal Higdon and Jeff Galloway. Told him to try to follow something close to those plans but make it fit his level. We had a couple of long runs and he was having a hard time with the legs giving out on him, but I kept pushing him and figured his body would get use to the long runs. I think he was skipping to many runs during the week because of work or family. Anyway I trained him the best that I could and told him to go online for more info since I am not a coach but play one on TV.

Sunday morning around 4am, i cannot sleep. I do not know why it is not me that is racing but I am excited for my brother. I call him at 5am and tell him we can leave at 5:30am to find good parking. I tell him to call my cell so not to wake my family but he calls my home number anyway. I scold him and he tells me he is nervous and apologizes. I ask him if he wants me to drive and he says yes. He is on empty so we stop for gas but still make good time and arrive around 6:30 am. I find parking on the streets but my brother argues with me that we should park at the free big parking lot. I tell him its a nightmare and we will have a hard time getting out. He finally agrees with me and we park about 4 blocks from the race start. We walk around and he is getting excited by the minute. There are over 12,000 runnners and it is crowded. We see the police wrestle a young drunk, they have there foot in his face but he is still mouthing off to them. Around 7:00am I tell my brother we should warm up, so we run for 10 minutes. Then we stretch for about 15 minutes and we walk towards the 12 minute pace area. I tell him its just another long weekend run and to put positive thoughts in his head and imagine himself finishing strong. We run for about 10 minutes then we break for 1 minute, we do this for about 10 miles. Run, walk just like we trained. Then somehow after mile 10 at a water break we separate. I am getting water into my water bottles from my fuel belt so I can give to my brother when he is thirsty. I can't find him anywhere, I sprint ahead to the 2:30 pace runner and he is not with the group. I then heard an ambulance and ran back but it was someone else. Then I ran ahead again but did not find him. finally at mile 12 I caught up to him and he is asking me to give him the shot blocks that I am carrying on my fuel belt along with water.
He tells me his legs fell like cement. I tell him to rest 30 seconds but we need to finish strong. We can see the finish line about 200 meters and I tell him if he has anything left to sprint in. He sprints in and he is happy with his finish time. We are only 8 minutes off from our goal but we are both happy with the outcome. We don't stick around for the post party and head home. I am straving so my brother treats me to breakfast at a restuarant close to our home. I tell him we need to figure out when to start training for the full marathon next year. He tells me he does not think he can complete a marathon. I ask him if he thought he could do a half marathon a year ago. I tell him with the proper training you can do it.