Route 66 Marathon

Well, it's over. I am sore and tired today - especially my quads. I had a pretty good race yesterday. My gut told me that I was in shape to run something like a 3:45 marathon, maybe a 3:40 if everything went just right. But several people assured me that I was in shape to run a 3:35, which would qualify me for Boston. I gave in to peer pressure and started off on a 3:35 pace. I was running with Eric Soutee, who I have been training with this session. Almost from the start I felt like I was running a faster pace than I could hold for the full distance, but Eric sort of pushed me to keep up the pace. We went through the half marathon in 1:47:08, which was actually slightly ahead of pace. By the 27k point (about 17 miles), our pace had slowed so that our average was 8:17 per mile, which is about a 3:37 marathon time. It was at about that time that I started walking a bit to let Eric get ahead of me and run his own race. I was still on pace for a 3:40 past the 21 mile mark, but I started having sharp pain at my right knee - IT band problems. I stopped at a medical tent and taped it up and kept going, but I lost time at the tent while the volunteers searched for tape. They really didn't seem prepared for that type of medical treatment. From there on I pretty much ran for about five minutes and walked a minute until about the last mile. That dropped my pace to around 10:30 per mile for several miles.

My final time was 3:49:50, a PR by over 7 minutes! I am happy, but think maybe I could have run just a bit faster if I hadn't gone out so fast.

I am really proud of Eric, who finished his first marathon in 3:43:10! Rachel Mitchell got a new PR of 3:59:19. Woohoo! I think Kurt Kruskop is the first person to finish who has been training regularly with the RunnersWorld group. He ran what I think might be a PR - 3:15:47, and he finished 2nd in his age group!. Looks like both he and Fred Isaacs qualified for Boston! Way to go guys! Amanda Lecrone, who has been running the Monday hill sessions with me and Rusty and others ran her first marathon in 4:11:04. Woohoo! And Rusty gets kudos for encouraging her all along the way both in training and in the race. I think Curtis Roberts got a PR too - 3:58:29 - and that with almost even splits, just like it's supposed to be done. And of course, there are a lot of folk who finished their first marathon, and I am proud of you all!