Super Sunday

First off, Annette and Bailey completed the Surf City Marathon in Huntington Beach, CA in 5:33:13. They ran together the whole way which was great. Not bad considering their only goal was to finish in under 6 hours. I know they had a great time. Wish I could have made it. Here are a few pictures that Annette sent me. I'm sure she will post a bunch on her blog when she gets back.

This was taken during one of the breaks during the race

Annette walking next to the beach

This is Annette's Step Mom, Dad and Aunt who were in California and got to see her finish. Can you see the surf board around her neck?

As for me, I just did a little bike ride. Arrived at Mt Carmel Church at 1:30pm for the standing Cruiser Sunday ride. I was about 10 minutes early but no one was there. I was a little shocked since the weather was almost perfect for riding other than the wind. Wind, who cares about wind? Well, about the time I decided I was going to ride by myself, Duane pulls up on his bike. We start talking routes and then Jeremy rides up. Tried to get James and Russ to ride but I think they wanted to just take it easy for the day. I wanted to do the same but its not very often that we have 63 degree days in early February so I wanted to take advantage of it. My legs were really sore from yesterday but I was hoping for an "easy" ride to act as recovery. So let me repeat one more time, "there are no easy bike rides with our group". If your not being pushed, your pushing someone, that's just the way it is. I guess it works as most of us keep getting faster.

Our route ended up being what I would say is the Mt Tabor/321 loop. We left the church and took 89 to Mt Tabor and headed east. The wind was really getting it and I let the group starting out. I had never ridden with these two guys much so I really didn't know their pace so I just rode moderately. Mt Tabor is always fun as there are a lot of "inclines" which you really feel on the bike. After a few miles Jeremy asked if he could lead for a while and I said sure. Much easier to draft than to pull. He is a pretty strong rider and I had to work to keep up with him. Duane hung in there too. Just before we got to Hwy 31 I heard a loud pop. Sounded sorta like a rock hit my wheel but I had the sneaking suspicion that I had broken a spoke. We stopped at the intersection and sure enough, I had a rear wheel spoke that was broke at the hub. The weird thing is, last time I had a broken spoke, I had stopped at the exact same place when I found it.

I told the guys that I would just have to limp it in. Luckily my rear wheel wasn't wobbling so bad that the brakes were rubbing like last time so I was able to keep going. I was a little leery about doing a lot of speed but I figured I could make it with no problems. In fact, I got back in the lead and pulled all the way onto 321. It seemed like when we were going east we had a little bit of a tail wind and when we turned north, it was like not as much wind. But when we turned on to 321, we hit one of the worst head/crosswinds I have had in a while. It was so bad a couple times I almost ran off the road trying to hold my bike in line.

I guess we had dropped Duane just before the turn and Jeremy dropped me on the next hill. My hill legs are just not back yet, but they are getting there. And 321 has some good hills on it. The wind was bad so we were working extra hard. I looked down and it was all I could do to hold 15mph. Luckily there were downhills to gain some speed and rest.

Made it back to the church and I was amazed to see that I had averaged 16.5 mph. I figured I would have dropped to 15 or less with that wind and a broken spoke. So much for an easy ride. But my legs felt better for doing it, though when I was done, I was really done. Here are the final stats which I am happy with considering it was a very hilly and windy route.

Total Miles - 18.78
Bike Avg Speed - 16.5mph
Calories - 1128
Avg. HR - 160

That gives me total bike miles for the weekend of 45.01 and I burnt right at 2800 calories just on the bike. No wonder I'm tired and hungry! Hope everyone has a great week.

Blogging through the cold

It has been an extremely cold week here. We had ice on Monday evening and Tuesday. I had to travel to Memphis Monday morning for a meeting. The original plan was to spend the night but after watching the weather deteriorate, I decided to high tail it home after we had an early dinner. It was 36 degrees and a light mist when I left Memphis. Before I made it 30 miles into Arkansas, the temperature had dropped to 30 degrees. Can you say major pucker factor when you cross bridges! Actually, never encountered any slick spots for a long ways. I was worried about the White River Bridge on I40 but it was clear as a bell. Between there and Lonoke though things started to change. Just before Lonoke the temp had dropped to 28 degrees. The first bridge west of Lonoke was icy and had a bad wreck off on the side. I had my fire radio on so I heard South Bend getting paged out for another accident on I40 between the 169 and 170 mile marker. I looked where I was and I figured it would be about Remington. Sure enough, it was just west of Remington so I managed to get off the exit with no problem. Still one bridge on 89 to cross before home. When I got to it traffic was stopped and I guess the police were turning people around so I turned around and came back to Cabot via Kerr Road. No problems after that but it was a stressful drive home for sure.

Tuesday was pretty bad in some places but didn't really affect me any. It was suppose to get worse on Tuesday night but that never materialized here. The northern part of the state got it bad though with a lot of ice and power outages. We missed the bullet here!

Wednesday night I ran 4 miles on the treadmill. It was actually a pretty good run. Just an easy get it done run in 42:00. Average pace 10:30. If it was cold on the treadmill it would be easier but mine is upstairs and it always seems to be too warm for me even with a fan. But that's ok, it makes me sweat which is good.

Tonight I did a little speed work for the first time in a long time. I wanted to see if I could do a timed mile on the treadmill. Started with a 1 mile warm up and then went into the timed mile. Well, it's kind of hard to really do a timed mile on a treadmill. All you can do is start out at a pace you think is moderately hard and then increase. Pretty much what I did. Could have been faster but I didn't really have a clue as it's been so long since I really ran fast. Timed mile ended up being a 9:15 and I know I could have done better. I at least have a number to start basing a little speed work off of. I also wanted to get a feel of what my 5k time could be. This is a start and I think I am going to try one tempo or LT pace run once a week. I am just going to try to stay away from the repetition pace as that's where I get hurt most of the time.

Oh yeah, Annette and Bailey are headed to Huntington Beach, California this weekend to run the Surf City Marathon. It will be Annette's 4th marathon in less than a year. I think she will also qualify as a "Marathon Maniac" since this will be three marathons in a 3 months time period. I had plans of doing the same back in the summer but injuries forced me out. In fact, I doubt I will do another marathon until fall, but that's subject to change. Right now work is too stressful to get the needed training and have the right frame of mind that I need. Going to work on the shorter distances and improving my 1/2 marathon times without getting injured. That's the main goal. Stay healthy!

Good luck this weekend Annette and Bailey!

Memphis Marathon Weekend

Sorry if this is long but read on if you dare.

The St Jude's Marathon is now over but it was a whirlwind weekend for Annette and I. Me as a spectator. Annette as a full marathon finisher. And I'll have to say, I am pretty proud of her. She ran 20 miles without a walk break and set a new marathon PR of 4:57:53. This was her 5th marathon and her 4th this year. Amazing!!

We left Friday morning meeting a caravan of Cabot Cruisers at Brenda's house around 10am. The initial count by Vicki was that there was going to be at least 35 Cabot Cruisers at the race either doing the full or the half. Vicki was doing the 5k even. We hit the road with the official Cruiser caravan and the funny thing was, it was three Honda CRV's and all with 26.2 stickers on the back.

We arrived at the expo around 12:30 and got our packets and made the rounds. I was a little disappointed that the expo was so small. I guess it was maybe bigger than Little Rock but there was no comparison at all to Nashville. Memphis may have been smaller than Tulsa in fact. Nashville was so crowed you couldn't even walk. Memphis you could look around and chat all you wanted which was nice. Afterwards we all got checked in at the Marriott and started thinking about where to eat dinner. It was soon determined that we would eat at the hotel since they were having a pasta buffet. Around 5 we met in the lobby and took over the restaurant. There were other Cruisers that had arrived and I think we must have had 20-25 there by that time with more arriving. It was pretty cool to see that our one little town had this many runners here.

After dinner we hung out and chatted, sat down with James and Michele while they ate dinner and also went to a 25 year wedding anniversary toast for Don and Tammy. Pretty busy night and it was still fairly early. Since I wasn't racing, I could really see and feel the stress and tension everyone had. Wondering what to wear, what the weather was going to be like, what to eat, did they have their nutrition right, what pace they were running and the list went on. We even walked back over to the Expo with a few of the crew then it was time to head to the room.

That was another story too. For some reason we had gotten a room with two double beds and Jane, who had her son and a friend with her, only got a single king bed. We were staying two nights and she was only staying one but to make things easier for them, Annette offered to swap rooms for the night. No big deal, happy to do it. Only problem was, late check out was 2pm and we had to get our stuff back in our original room by then. That meant that the girls would have to run the marathon and be back at the hotel within 6 hours. Well, Annette really didn't want to think about that the night before and I didn't push the issue. She had stuff laid all over the room trying to figure out what to wear. It was very interesting to say the least because the marathon had totally taken over everyone at that point. I think we finally got to bed at 10 maybe. Set the alarm for 4:50. Of course, hotel rooms always suck and it was hard to sleep.

Annette was up and going at 5am so she could eat. By 5:30 she was getting up and starting to get ready. Think I made it up around 6, headed down to the coffee shop and got coffee. The group was all meeting at 6:50 to head to the race start. I wanted to see them off but I really didn't want to go to the start as it was about 28 degrees or less and you really can't see anyone in that mass group of people. Instead, I came up with the plan for the support crew in the group to go to the corner of Popular and Main to cheer everyone on. That would be just past mile 3. We got a couple photos before everyone left then the rest of us had a little time.

Just past 8am, James, Bob, Cindy and myself headed to the corner to cheer on the runners. It was very cold and it was windy too. This was one time it would have been better being a runner because at least the running would warm you up some. We got to see the lead vehicle and then the lead runners come through. The first two were very fast and obviously just running the 1/2. About a block back came a group of Kenyans who all appeared to be running the full marathon. One of our runners was not too far behind them though. Josh who is very fast was maybe a couple blocks behind them and this was his first marathon.

We saw several of our runners and it was fun cheering everyone on as they came by. I would often tell the people running that they were warmer than I was. I don't even remember who all we saw. We wanted to see everyone but we missed a bunch in the traffic. I hope we gave some of the runners a boost at least. And we hung out there in the bitter cold till probably past the 5:30 runners. By then we had to go get warm and headed back to the hotel with hopes of breakfast.

After checking our time, Bob informed us that he didn't have time for breakfast as he wanted to see Lisa finish the half. She is very fast so she was expected around 1:40ish. We didn't have over an hour so we opted for coffee and some got a snack there. We lucked out and caught the warm trolley and headed for Autozone Park and the finish line. It was a good thing we did things the was we did. It wasn't 3 minutes after we got there and Lisa and Rock's name was called out as coming in to the finish line. The finish line for the half wasn't really where you could see it good so James and I ended up going over to the food. Since both of us had paid to race and couldn't, we used our number to get us some free race food. After all, we paid big money for this little perk!

After killing a little time talking and walking around, it wasn't long till we were in the 2:30 time range. We all knew that Josh was shooting for maybe a 2:45 marathon time so we sat and waited in the bleachers to watch for him. Time passed but there was still plenty for him as he needed a 3:10 to Boston qualify. Just past the 3:00 time we saw him run in the stadium. He crossed the line showing 3:02 but officially it was a 3:01. Amazing time for his first marathon! I also forgot to mention that I got to see the marathon winner come in and finish. That was pretty awesome too!

We knew it would be at least an hour before we had anyone else come in so James and I headed over to the Peabody to see if they were showing the pay per view fight Saturday night. After that we headed back to the hotel and I had intentions of getting our bags moved back to our original room. We did luck out and catch the trolley so it only took maybe 5-10 minutes to get there. Still plenty of time for me to get back to the finish line. When I got to my room my key wouldn't work so I had to go back downstairs to get another one. But, Jane's son was at the stadium and not the hotel so I couldn't move our bags back. Time was running out and I had to get back to the finish line to watch Brenda finish so I took off. Unfortunately the trolleys were all going the other way and I had 15 minutes before the 4:00 race time mark. Brenda needed a 4:00:59 to BQ and I was determined to not miss seeing her make it. I ended up running and walking all the way back to the stadium. Walked in and the clock was showing 3:58 I think. I found Cindy and asked her if Brenda had come in yet and she said no. I knew there was some cushion though because the race was chip timed and it could have been 10-15 minutes to cross the start. I was hoping at least for Brenda who had worked and trained so hard for this race. Something told me though that the extreme cold temps had slowed some people down and I was right. As the clock ticked past the 4:01 time we all got more and more anxious. Our little group of spectators was almost chanting, "come on Brenda," "come on Brenda". Well, she gave it her all and it was just not the day to do it. Her final time was 4:07 and change I think. Still an awesome time but the course and weather conditions just didn't let the BQ happen. I have no doubt that it will happen on the next one! Next came Andrea, Bailey, Michele, Robert and Jane.

Annette had called me when she was at mile 22 pretty upset. She was cramping and was having to walk. I told her to take some electrolytes and drink some water. This was all before Brenda came in and I kept texting her trying to keep her updated. She sent me a text later saying she was at mile 24. I knew her ultimate goal of 4:45 was not going to happen but her under 5 hour goal was still doable. If only we knew what time her garmin had! It was like sitting on pins and needles watching the race clock as it went past the 5:00 mark. Brenda said her time was almost 15 minutes off so that was encouraging. Then as the clock was about to show 5:10 I saw a lady in pink come running in. It was Jackie. And then behind her was Annette. They were going to finish right together. It was an awesome sight. They crossed as the clock said 5:11 something but everyone said they were under 5 hours. That was all that mattered. I took off to meet them. The bad thing about this marathon is that afterwards, all the runners have to walk up stairs to get out of the stadium. Is that cruel or what?? Anyway, I was there at the top when Jackie and Annette made it there. Annette was happy but pretty upset that she missed her 4:45. She said a cop let a car through an intersection and she had to stop running real fast which caused her to cramp up. Irregardless her 4:57:53 is an awesome time and a big PR for her. Kelly finished a few minutes back behind Annette and she also had a big PR.

Unfortunately I couldn't stay around to celebrate. It was 1:30 pm and I had to have our stuff out of that room by 2:00. So I took off leaving Annette with the others. Luckily Jane and the boys had already went that way too. Again I missed the trolley so I fast walked it back. And again, my room key wouldn't work. Got new ones, they wouldn't work. Finally the maid let me in as she saw all the trouble I was having to go through. She must have wondered what the hell was going on when she saw me moving bag after bag from one room to the other. I just said, we are crazy runners! All the while this was going on Annette was calling telling me they had walked to a Mexican Restaurant to eat and for Jane and I to come join them. Once we had everything situated we took off for the restaurant. Again we missed the trolley but it was good for Jane to get some walking in anyway. Had some good food and a couple beers at the Mexican place. All the marathon finishers were hobbling around. Must have been at least 15 of us that ate there.

We lucked out and made the trolley back to the hotel. When we got back Jane and her gang started grabbing their bags to head home. One of the maids knocked on the door and handed us some shoes. I guess I had left a pair of Annette's running shoes in the other room. The maid had remembered the room we were in because of all of the confusion. Robert and Kelly also had stuff in our room so it was a whirlwind again, everyone getting their stuff and changing to head home.

Annette and I stayed the night and later met up with James, Michele, Phil, Jackie, Bob, Lisa, Ken and Debbie. Made it down to Beale Street for some food, fun and more walking. Ended up at BB King's place where Annette and I even got some dancing in. I was amazed that she could dance after running a marathon! We also got to see a parade of Santa Claus's walking down Beale Street. Now that was a weird sight!! We were all back at the hotel before midnight. It was a fun night with some great friends and running companions.

Unfortunately neither Annette or I got a good nights sleep. The room was either too hot or the pillows were too flat. I ended up getting up pretty early, got coffee and then we ended up meeting James and Michele for a breakfast buffet. It was awesome! Headed home about 10:45 ending an awesome weekend in Memphis. Hopefully next year it won't be as cold and maybe I'll get to run St Jude's for once.

I'll try to post some photos that I took later.

Marathon Maniac?

Maybe.

It's on to training now. Another 5 miles tonight on the dreadmill and .5 walking. I already have 10 miles for the week and can still walk!

I have come to the conclusion that if I can't run fast, I'll just run slow and long and enjoy it. Maybe I'll start using Galloway's run/walk programs.

Memphis will be my projected big marathon on December 6th. I have my schedule made up and I am actually starting right where I started before Nashville. I thought I would be way behind, which I am but I can catch up. Nashville was actually a good marathon for me and I would have finished much better if it hadn't been so hot towards the end. I was injured before that one too.

The Midsouth (Wynne) Marathon is November 1st and that's the same weekend I would have a 20 miler scheduled. Since its a Grand Prix Championship Marathon race, I'm about 95% sure I'm going to run it as a training run. Anything under 6 hours would be fine. Just have fun, and Wynne has water stops every mile on the course. It is a small marathon though so not much crowd support but I am trying to recruit some other crazies now.

Annette wants to do the Surf City Marathon on February 1st in Huntington Beach California. If we somehow were able to do these, we would qualify as Marathon Maniacs. Mmmm.....the schemes begin.

Oh yeah, marathon training has begun. It's on now, bring on the pain!

San Francisco Marathon

Well its now history and the girls all had a great race. This was Baileys first marathon and they said at around mile 25, she wasn't ready for it to be over yet she was having so much fun. The four of them ran close together pretty much the whole race and had FUN. Thats what its all about. Wish we could have had the weather temps here like they had there! Congratulations ladies on a job well done!

Here are their final times and a few photos:

Michele 5:11:22
Cheryl 5:14:23
Bailey 5:15:54
Annette 5:15:55

Bailey's mom was crewing for them

Cheryl, Michele and Bailey

Annette, Cheryl, Bailey, Michele - it's actually cool there

San Francisco

Annette along with Bailey, Michele and Cheryl are now in San Francisco preparing for tomorrows San Francisco Marathon. This will be Baileys FIRST marathon! She was so stressed on Wednesday night. We had a small group riding bikes and of course Bailey had to take off then so did I. We ended up talking a lot about her upcoming marathon. She will do great. Just had those first marathon jitters. Annette and Michele are on their 3rd marathon and Cheryl is on her second so at least they do know what to expect. The weather in SF looks great. Nice and cool, especially compared to the 102 degree stuff we have here. The girls are having a great time all the while I am stuck in Fire Department classes all weekend:(

Here are a few photos they sent me:

Michele and Annette



Michele and Annette in SF



Cheryl and Michele


Michele and Annette at the Expo

Chinatown

Cheryl and Annette

Bailey and her Mom



Yes Michele, your butt is fast!

Nashville is done!

We just made it back home from the Nashville Country Music Marathon and I'll have to say this is one of the best organized and fun events I have ever been to.

I did not hit my ultimate goal time but I did come in below my minimum. I wanted a 4:45 but ended up with a 4:58:03 final. That's a new PR by 34:42 for me! The weather was a big factor, the sun came out at about mile 15 and by mile 20 or so everyone started struggling.

Full race report to follow. We did so much and had so much fun it might take a while to get everything wrote up.

Taper Madness is here

Saturday I will be running the Nashville Country Music Marathon. This week I am pretty much worthless. With the running of Boston yesterday, I could barely work. We watched the live video on the computer and our good friend Rock finished in just over 4 hours. It must have been an awesome feeling crossing the same finish line where all the great running legends have crossed.

So taper madness is here. All the questions start popping up in your head. Did I train hard enough? Did I run enough long runs? Did I get enough mileage in each week? At least one thing I do know for sure, I can finish. And I have done the distance before, not fast but I have been there and know what lays ahead of me.

So whats my goal? Whats my pacing plan? I'm still bouncing this one around and will be probably until the start. I would love to break 4:45. Which means I need an average pace right at 10:50 per mile. Sounds pretty slow at first, but by mile 15 on things start hurting and the head starts playing games with you.

Then there is the pacing plan. There seem to be two coaching theories on this. One is to just run a steady pace from start to finish. A lot of coaches say this has the best results. The other way of thinking is to run negative splits. Start out slow, then pick it up, then really pick up the pace the last 6 miles. The problem I have with this plan is starting out slow. They want me to run an 11:19 pace for the first two miles and that seems to be impossible for me right now. Only way I could do that is to take at least two walk breaks in each of the first two miles. Maybe I should try it.

What to do, what to do. Then there is what to carry. Water pack or none. I am leaning towards nothing this time, but I have to be able to carry my gels, phone, endurolytes, etc. Shoes I am set. Socks I am set. I will run in the same brand that I did my last 20 in when it rained for 4 hours solid. If I didn't get a blister then those are the socks to wear. Running shorts I am pretty much set. Shirts, could depend on the weather but it will probably just be my Cruiser singlet.

So the other big question that looms is if 4:45 is an achievable goal? Coach Dennis told me that based on my training I should be able to run a 10:45 pace which would put me under 4:45. But, two factors that can affect that will be race course and weather. We know Nashville has some hills, how big and how many I really don't know. I feel like I am ready for them hopefully. Weather, well we have no control over that one. I just hope its not sizzling hot. If so it will be a long slow race. I did run almost 8 miles Saturday afternoon in 80 degree sunny heat. It was tough but good for training.

It would be much easier to not have a goal, just to run. But the competitive side of me kicks in so I'll have several goals. All of which are subject to change as the race unfolds. On to more taper madness!

Rockin Boston 2008

I made this video for our good friend Raquel "Rock" who is running her first ever Boston Marathon on Monday April 21st. This is the "Super Bowl" of running. You cannot buy a spot into Boston, you have to earn it and it's not an easy task. I have to run a 3:35:59 marathon to qualify. That will probably never happen but you never know.

Good luck in Boston Rock! Hope you have a great race.

CCC & Hogeye Race Reports

Wow, it has been a whirlwind weekend. Back to back races and back to back PR's. First I'll start with Saturday's race at the Capitol City Classic 10k.

Saturday my plan was to "race" this one and use Sunday as a training run. Annette and I met Bailey and Robert at Team 1 so we could car pool to Two Rivers Park. It was somewhat chilly but not bad. Low to mid 40's. If the wind would stay down it would be perfect. This is a pretty flat course and very fast. I think I raced 3 or 4 10k's last year and my PR was on this one at about 1:04 and some change. My goal was to break 1 hour. Anything below that and I would be happy.

The race started and we were off. I ran for a little bit with Annette and Michelle but I was feeling good so I went on. I had plans to run solid to the water stop at about mile 2 or so. It was warming up pretty fast and I was ready for a drink when I got there. One thing I cannot do is drink from a cup and run at the same time. I can with a bottle but not a cup. Quick walk, drink and I was gone again. I could hear Annette and Michelle behind me every now and then so I figured they would be passing me soon. I think it helped to push me some too. I slowed a little after mile three and they did catch me. We ran pretty close till the water stop around 4. Michelle's husband James had been close to the girls most of the time also but about here he started speeding up. So Michelle took off to stay with him. Annette picked up speed and so did I. I ended up passing Annette at about 5 then pressing on. I knew she was trying to catch me all the time so this kept me runnig strong. No spectacular race to the finish here but I did set a new PR of 58:01 which I was very happy with. Annette came in at 58:17 which was a great time for her. Several of the cruisers had PR's also. I almost had a perfect split time, wish it would have been a negative split. Here they are.

6.2 Miles
Time - 58:01
Avg Pace - 9:21
1-9:12
2-9:27
3-9:15
4-9:37
5-9:07
6-9:15
.2-7:48

After the race, we headed home to shower and pack so we could drive to Fayetteville for the Hogeye 1/2 Marathon.

Bailey met us around 1:00pm and then we headed to Jackie's to pick her up. We always try to car pool when possible plus its always fun to ride with a group. We met more of the Cruisers in Conway along the way. Michelle, James, Robert, Rock and Brenda were at Chic Fila when we got there. Also Marianne and Heather were there. James had done a bike ride after the 10k with Marianne, Heather and some others. They are training for Ironman Couer Delane. (I'm sure that is spelled wrong) The trip from there was uneventful, we had a 3 car caravan pretty much all the way. One thing for sure, with three women runners in the car the conversation never stopped.

After we got to Fayetteville we headed to the Expo at our hotel. All I can say is WOW. This was the smallest expo I had ever seen. I think there may have been 7 booths set up if that. Well, that was fast getting in and out of there anyway. From there we all got checked in and made plans for dinner.

We all met about 45 minutes late in the lobby. Since we were only 2 blocks from Dickson Street we walked down to the restaurant. It was the Hog Haus Cafe and we were on a 35 minute wait. Gary and Curtis had been at the hotel waiting for us but we lost Marianne and Heather as they had other plans. It didn't take long to get us in for food. With 9 runners there is always conversation going on and we were already having too much fun!

We finished up with dinner and headed back to the hotel to get ready for the 7:30am start. When we got back I realized that I didn't plan for breakfast. No big deal, I figured they would have something around there. Wrong!

I got up at 5:45am, made coffee and went out to find some food. I walked probably half a mile and there was nothing around there. The hotel didn't even have room service in the morning which I thought was weird. I ended up eating some of my peanut butter and crakers which proved to be a good choice. I had my doubts at the time.

The cool thing about this race is that the starting line was 100 feet from our hotel. All we had to do was take the elevator down and walk a few feet to the start/finish line. I liked that about this race. Also the hotel was allowing late check outs till 2:30pm for the runners.

There was a cool breeze at the 7:30am start time with temps in the mid 40's. I wore shorts and a technical t shirt along with throw away gloves and baseball hat. I knew it was going to get warm once we got started and we had 13.1 miles and about 2.5 hours of running to do.

Everyone in our group was doing the half but Gary was doing the full. He is training for Ironman Louisville and also will be running Nashville with us. He is an animal when it comes to training and this was suppose to be a training run for him.

I never had a goal time in mind for this race. We had decided that this was just a training run and would count for Grand Prix points so I didn't care what my time was. The race started and I ran the first mile or two with Annette and Michelle. Less than one mile into the race we had a big hill. Let me tell you, this course has some hills. For the first 4 miles it was nothing but one hill after another. With every uphill there was a downhill which was good. By mile 2 I was already feeling the hills. I quickly changed my plan of attack. I decided that if the hill was hurting running up that I would just walk up it and then take advantage of the gravity and run down them. We had practiced this many times with Coach Dennis and I knew how to properly run downhill. On every downhill I would pass people. No one passed me on the downhills. Very few on the uphills. Some of these were so steep that you just wasted your time and energy trying to run up them.

I walked a lot in this race and stopped at almost every water stop to get a drink. By mile 4 it was hot and we hit a semi flat area. I was starting to think about taking my gel. Before we hit mile 5 I could see the turn around in the back of the neighborhood. Just before the the turn around I also started seeing other Cruisers and Gary. I was cheering them on and this gave me an extra boost. I kept waiting for Annette and Michelle to catch and pass me. I had no idea where they were but I figured they were close. After I made the turn around I was about to get worried. No Annette or Michelle yet. After about 1/4 mile there they were. I must have been 1/4 to 1/2 a mile ahead of them. They said I looked good and they did too. Then I heard James come up behind me. He had been in front of me but took a bathroom break. We ran pretty close for a couple miles. I would run for a while then I would take a quick walk break. But when I was running I was running pretty good. For some reason this was working really well for me. I figured James would pass me on one of my breaks but it never happened. Still, I really had no time goal in mind. I just wanted to have a good training run.

That came to an end around mile 10. I looked at my garmin and started calculating my times. I knew I had a 5k left, say 30 minutes. Wow, I could possibly beat my Little Rock PR. Then I thought no, I still had all those big hills to deal with again on the way back so I would lose more time. Again, these hills were monsters. One of them was so steep walking up it was hurting because it was stretching my calves so much. By mile 11 I was calculating my pace remembering that when I did Little Rock I needed about a 10:25 average pace to finish around 2:15. Mmmm, I was very close to 10:25 now. I started smelling a PR. PR? How could it be? On this course? No way. I died in Little Rock and ran a 2:22 gun time and it was flat compared to this. But I was running strong and I was taking advantage of every downhill. Thats where I got my speed.

By mile 12 I was telling myself "you can PR, you can PR". This helped push me. When I hit the last hill going into the square where the finish was I did one last walk. As I turned the first corner on the square, there was a man and a woman just ahead of me. The man looked like he might be in my age group so I decided I better take him out, so I sprinted the last 25 yards to the finish line passing them both. That was exciting! Final time 2:18:16 and a new PR. I was very excited, especially on this course to be able to PR and even more so to have back to back races with PR's. Here were my final splits. You can see where the hills were.
Total miles - 13.1
time - 2:18:16
Avg pace - 10:33
1-9:49
2-10:53
3-8:58
4-10:53
5-9:58
6-9:58
7-10:13
8-10:25
9-10:49
10-10:29
11-11:43
12-11:26
13:10:20
.1-10:38
1720 calories

I have some photos and maybe a post race story later. By the way, my good friend Gary finished the full marathon in 3:47. Awesome job for this course! Several Cruisers won age group awards for the 1/2 also. Too many to mention right now but you guys are awesome!

Inspiration Run

Today was the 26.2 Miles of Inspiration Run. This run was started last year by one of our good friends and Cruiser Jackie. The purpose of the run was to run and or bike to all the schools in the city of Cabot. Jackie started this last year as a whim for her 35th birthday and decided that the kids needed some inspiration to get off the couch and get active. This led to the Summer Track Nights where we would host a small track run for the kids once a week during the summer. Jackie was feature in Runners World Magazine last fall about this.

Annette was sick yesterday and stayed home from work hoping to be able to do the run today but when she woke up she felt worse. She was so upset as she really wanted to do this run. She was able to make it out to several of the schools to cheer us on which was great and allowed her to at least see everyone and feel the excitement.

This year the route consisted of 11 schools. It was 12 originally but for some strange reason Ward Elementary dropped out. From Ward to the last school would be right at 26.2 miles. Jackie did start at Ward anyway though there wasn't any kids for her to talk to. I was with a large group that met up with her at the 38/319 intersection.

This was at the beginning of our run. It was very humid and foggy at that time. You can see the excitement of some of the girls.

The first school we ran to was Middle School North. As we run into the parking lots, all the little kids would be lined up along the curve with their hands out for us to slap. Let me tell you, it was awesome. If you ever want to feel like a rock star you have to do this run or organize one in your area. Once at the school, Jackie would make a short speech about getting active and leading a healthy lifestyle. They even had bags of fat to show the kids. Another cool thing about the run, the mayor of Cabot followed us the whole way and we had a police escort with 3-4 police cars at times. Throughout the day we probably had 15-20 runners and 3-7 bikers with us not counting support.

Some of the group running down S. First Street

After the Middle School it was on to the High School track where we did one lap around the track and a few high school kids participated. Next it was on to West Side. Then to Central Elementary. After Central we did Middle School South, Jr High South then South Side Elementary. The distance between schools was 1-3 miles. From there we went to the new Stagecoach Elementary, then to Eastside. It seemed the more we ran the better the cheering at the schools got. Eastside even had big signs made up for us.

Some of the runners and the kids at Eastside Elementary

We also had a lot of news coverage. Channel 11 had their camera man get in the trunk of their car and they put a mic on Jackie so they could interview her as she ran. Channel 4 and 7 was there too along with numerous photographers from newspapers. You never knew where a camera would be.

After Eastside it was on to Northside. Then we had the dreaded last leg of the run. Another 5+ miles to Magness Creek. This route took us across the freeway in downtown Cabot, right on Willie Ray, and then left on to Mountain Springs Road on to Hwy 5. Well, the name of the road says it all. Lots of hills. This proved to be the hardest part of our run for most everyone

Jackie speaks to the kids at Northside Elementary

We had a great support crew also with Coach Dennis in one van and Jackie's husband Phil in another. When we would stop at the school, everyone would get water or food so we stayed fed and hydrated. I kidded Dennis about his van being all messed up from all of our food and stuff but he said he was used to it as he used to train elite runners for Nike.

After tackling one of the big hills on Wille Ray and running some on Mtn Springs, I decided that I really didn't have to do as many miles as this route was and it probably wasn't too smart for me too, so I rode the van for 2 miles. We had several others that rode some and I bailed out at Hwy 5 so I could climb the final big hill with the group into the finish. I was already at 20 miles then.

Everyone had pretty much slowed down at this point and the police cautioned us to stay together on Hwy 5 as it is very busy. We did and made it over that last hill. From there it was all downhill to the school. As we rounded the last curve the kids were lined up on the side of the road cheering us on. It is hard to describe the feeling. There was even more kids lined up on the school grounds. All you could see were kids lined up cheering us in. I know how rock stars feel now. Thats what it was like. Since Magness was our last stop, they had food & drinks waiting on us in celebration of our run. Poor Jackie, Coach O talked her into standing on one of the picnic tables to talk to the kids. She told her, "I just ran a marathon, I don't know if I can get up there!" But she did. With the greetings those kids gave us at each school, we could have ran all day. It was an awesome day and an awesome experience.

Jackie speaks to the kids at Magness Creek, our final stop.

Final tally for me, 22 miles! I have no idea what the pace was. We stopped so many times and sometimes I would stop my garmin and sometimes I wouldn't. I do know that the runs between schools were pretty fast. I saw a lot of my 1 mile splits just over 10:00 which for marathon distance is pretty fast for me. The good thing is my legs feel great. My feet are a little sore. Nothing else hurts. We will see how it is tomorrow. Nashville look out. I'm almost ready for you now!!

Little Rock 1/2 Marathon Wrap Up

Three days after the event and I'm still reeling from all the excitement. Some of the best parts of the day I really didn't get to write about yet. Which the best parts were the people, and especially all of the Cabot Country Cruisers that were there. At last count we had right at 60 club members participate in one of the races in some form or fashion. We had members in the 5k, in the relay, in the half and also the full marathon. It's really hard to put in writing the support this group gives to one another. We almost get to the point we feed off each other. We keep each other motivated. If one of us is down or having a bad day, there is always someone there to cheer you on. I could go on and on about the Cruisers as a group. We have members that have been written up in runners world and we have members that hold state records in varying distances. We have iron men and iron women. The list goes on and on. I can't say enough good things about all our running friends.

There is something about doing marathons and half marathons that is just hard to describe. It may be the large crowds, the distance or just the fact that you see all kinds and shapes of people doing it. It's not easy by no means. Especially a full marathon. The time it takes to train for a full marathon is hard for non runners to understand. But when you cross that finish line, there is nothing in the world that compares to the personal satisfaction that you just completed a marathon. Even a half is a big achievement for some. Last year when I ran my first half, it was almost as hard as when I finished my first full marathon. I was pumped for weeks afterwards.

It was a lot of fun and very rewarding watching as many of our friends finished their full marathon. The best was seeing Cheryl finish her 1st marathon. Annette, Bailey, Michelle and Kelly went and ran with her for her last two miles. I wanted to be there too but my foot was hurting so I waited on the sidelines with 6 or 8 other Cruisers to cheer her in.

The stories continue from each runner that ran Sunday. And I'm sure they will continue for a while. But, these stories give us something to talk about on our runs and lets us dissect the race so we can figure out what we did right and wrong.

As for me, Coach Dennis told me I probably made the fatal error of starting out too fast, and then getting burnt out before the end. He is exactly right. His philosophy is to run the first 1/3 of the race slower then let the race come to you at the end. One of our men did this and finished very well. I plan to try this pacing strategy this weekend when we run the Chase Race 2 miler. It's short and fast but my first mile will be slower than the second. Weather permitting. Forecasts are calling for SNOW tomorrow night all the way through Friday. This is unbelievable weather! No wonder its so hard to run when it changes so fast.

Little Rock Marathon Slide Show

Here is a slide show I made of our day at the Little Rock Marathon.

Little Rock Half Marathon Report

LR Half Marathon Report

We arrived at the race site 45 minutes before the start after caravanning with several car loads of Cruisers. Temperature was about 58 degrees which felt semi-cool but it was not bad at all. We all lined up heading east on President Clinton Blvd. awaiting the start. Annette, Michelle, Bailey, Kelly and Vicki were all back by the 4:30 pace group so there was quite a few people ahead of us. No big deal, we should get to the start in a minute or two.

Mass of humanity waiting to race

At 8am we were off, or at least walking. Once we got to the start line people were able to slowly jog and before you knew it we were jogging (not running) and dodging walkers! Walkers, why do they start with the marathoners in the pace groups? They should start either before the official start time or in the back. In any case, it was a mass of humanity to weave in and out of which slows things down. This was probably good as we all wanted to run about a 10:25-10:30 pace the first couple miles.

Mile 1 – This is where things started to warm up. The skies were clear and the sun was getting higher. I realized pretty quickly that this was not going to be an easy fun run. I was already starting to sweat. Kelly bailed out of the group somewhere in here and headed for a porta potty. I wondered if she would pass me later. It was not far from here that I lost the girls. I was on my own. 10:20 pace.

Mile 2 – Took us down Broadway and across the bridge into North Little Rock. The best part was seeing the Little Rock Fire Department ladder trucks with the American flag hung high over Broadway as we ran towards the bridge. Pretty cool! The bridge was not bad, I was still pumped and running on adrenalin but I could really feel that sun beating down on us. Still running solid at this point, maybe a little fast as the average started dropping. I was beginning to think about the upcoming water stop. After crossing the bridge the stop wasn’t where I thought it would be so I kept going. I think it was at about 2.7 maybe, so I grabbed a quick cup of water. 9:42 pace

This is always the coolest sight

Mile 3 – Mile 3 took us down Washington and then back up Riverfront back to the bridge again. Just a big loop actually. Sweating like a dog now. The sun is hot. I’m thinking I’m glad I have my own fluids today. 10:13 pace

Mile 4- Quick water stop here. I was starting to think I may have to walk every mile to keep hydrated and feeling good. Started back up the bridge and I was passing people like crazy. This was one of the steeper hills on the course. About the middle part of the bridge my Garmin hit mile 5 so I took my walk break. 9:43 pace

Mile 5 – I was still feeling pretty strong. My pace was right where I wanted it to be. I think it was an average of about 10:06 at this point so I was happy, but getting wore down from the heat. There was another water stop before mile 6 and I went ahead and did my accel gel here as I knew we would be getting into the hills soon. 10:11 pace

Mile 6 – The turn from 3^rd to Ferry St. meant we were heading into the neighborhoods and the hills. No biggie other than my legs were really feeling tired and my left foot was starting to hurt. Took another break in here somewhere. Slowing down at this point. 10:39 pace

Mile 7-9 – These miles started to be torture. Or at least it seemed that way. I had to force myself to keep pushing. Sometimes I’d win; sometimes I’d loose and have to walk. I usually don’t walk this much so what’s the deal?? I felt like I was having a terrible race at this point. My average pace had dropped from a 10:06 down to probably a 10:20. On top of that my left calf had some weird twinges so I was having visions of Tulsa, mile 8 again where I started hurting. It was a big mental game at this point. I was thinking about that time that I sure wish I had one of the Cruisers to run with to help keep me going. I started changing my goals. My ultimate 10:04 average pace which would have given me a 2:12 finish was gone. I still had a shot at my low goal of a 2:18. Paces here were 7-10:27, 8-10:50, 9-10:33.

Mile 10 – I think it was just before mile 10 when I happened to run upon no other than my lovely wife Annette. She was walking. So I waked with her and we talked. She was struggling and couldn’t figure out why. I said I had the same problem and didn’t understand either. I came to the conclusion that maybe it was the added heat. We had been training in weather no warmer than 52 degrees for weeks and now it was almost 70. We ran together a little bit and she said she had to walk again. I could see water stop up ahead so I told her I was headed there and she would catch up to me there. Well, I did the water stop but Annette wasn’t there when I was ready to go again so I took off. I knew how she was and usually she really picks it up at the end of runs and races so I thought I better get ahead of her if I want to have any chance at all of beating her or finishing with her. I was still struggling here though and I took some extra breaks thinking Annette was going to be there any time. 11:47 pace

Mile 11 -12 – These were just getting it done miles for me. For some reason the hills didn’t seem as bad as last year but I just couldn’t keep up a good solid run. I would run mid 9’s for maybe ¼ to ½ a mile and then I’d have to have a break. Some of this was not bad. My pace started coming back down a little. I was ready to get this done. We had some decent down hills on this part of the course but I wasn’t running too fast downhill as I didn’t want to get injured. Close to the end of 12 we had a big downhill before we turned on to LaHarpe. Good place to catch your breath. 11- 10:47 pace 12-10:34 pace

Mile 13 to the finish – After turning on LaHarpe I was hoping I could run it in all the way but I couldn’t. There were several hills on this last part of the course, not monsters but little rollers. I went up all of them but I took a couple walk breaks too. I wanted to do my last walk break just so that I could sprint in to the finish and make up all the time I could. I kept thinking that 2:18 was possible still. It would be hard to make though. And every time I would get fired up and go, I would run out of gas and slow down or have to walk. About .2 from the finish I heard an announcer say for everyone to get over, the marathon leader was fixing to come through. Well, that was enough for me. I wanted to race the guy! Ha…might be my only chance to race an elite runner. So I punched it, and I ran all that I had to the finish line. I never saw the marathon leader; someone said he came in a minute or two behind me. During my sprint I did hear a familiar voice. It was Jackie and she was saying how great I was doing, I didn’t even realize that I had passed her. She would have been one of those that I would never think I’d pass in a race but later I found out that she was struggling with some issues too. Vicki also struggled so I felt a little better knowing that it wasn’t just me. I was pushing it so hard at the finish line I almost peed in my pants! After getting my chip off I saw Kelly, Michelle and Bailey. They all did AWESOME! I headed for the bathroom for relief. Annette finished about 3 minutes behind me.

Final gun time - 2:21:59

Final chip time - 2:19:05 (unofficial)

Avg. Pace - 10:26

I'll write more tomorrow about the post race activities.

Six In The City - 11 hours to go

Its now less than 11 hours to go before I will be running the Little Rock 1/2 Marathon also known as Six In The City. This is the 6th running of the Little Rock Marathon so that is how they came by that name. I wish all my friends running the 1/2 and the full good luck and especially Cheryl who is running her 1st ever full marathon. Right now we have right at 50 Cabot Cruisers running in one race or the other so Cabot will be well represented. I'll write more tomorrow after its all over.

It's going to be warm tomorrow with 8am start time temps right at 60 degrees and rising into the mid to low 70's by mid afternoon. Here is my race attire all laid out and ready to go.

Thoughts of 2008

I guess I should be looking back at accomplishments for 2007 but all I can think of is whats coming up in 2008. The 2007 racing season is basically over. I won't be running any more races this year. I would like to be able to run a few miles before the first of the year and hopefully I will be able to. The leg feels pretty good, not 100% but at least 80% right now.

So today I worked up a running/biking calendar for 2008. The Grand Prix season kicks off on January 27th with the One Hour Track Run at Russellville. Thats pretty much it for January. February comes in with the Valentines 5k on the 9th and then the River Trail 15K on the 16th. Last year the River Trail 15K was one of my training runs for the Little Rock 1/2. Not sure yet if I am doing the half or the full. It all depends on the injury and if I can con some other runners into doing the full. It's just so much easier training with a group or at least one or two people doing the same event. I really want that Little Rock medal. It is the biggest marathon medal in the world they say. And it is big!

March has the Little Rock Marathon on the 2nd and then the Chase Race 2 miler on the 8th. The Cabot Spring Fling 5K is on the 29th. April will be somewhat challenging. On the 5th there is the Capitol City Classic 10K and then the next day is the Hogeye 1/2 Marathon in Fayetteville. Then the big question in our running group is which full marathon to run. Several have run Little Rock before so they are not as interested as I am. Nashville has the Country Music Marathon on the 26th of April and Oklahoma City is the 27th. So for now these two are a toss up. I'm sure a decision will be made soon. I have plenty of time to train for either of these and I could do the full in Little Rock and then one of these since they are way over a month apart. Of course that all depends on so many factors. I can't even run right now and I'm planning almost back to back marathons. Oh well, its fun to dream anyway! I'll talk about other upcoming races later.

Injury update

Today my walking strides are a little longer and it doesn't feel like my leg is going to come out from under me so I guess it's a little better but not much. I tried to get a Dr's appointment today but guess what? They are all closed! I guess no one better get sick or injured during a holiday week. Today was the first day I have been out of the house since coming home from work on Wednesday night so that was nice. I even got to use our whirlpool tub which seemed to help loosen the calf up some. I'm really not that concerned with running at this point, I just want to walk half way normal again. Being stuck in the house has allowed me some time to organize some of our race photos so I guess it's not all bad. Tomorrow I have to figure out a way to at least do an upper body workout or something.

A bunch of the Cruiser's are running the Great Duck Race tomorrow in Stuttgart. It's a small 10K race that Annette ran last year. It's a flat and fast course and most of them are just running it as a training run for the Memphis 1/2 Marathon on December 1st. Wish I could be there! Good luck guys!!

Post Marathon Wednesday

I guess its time to declare an official injury. Ever since the marathon my right leg has been giving me problems. It started during the marathon and I ran with it. At times I could barely walk but I could run once I got started. It hasn't changed much since Monday. I can walk, but only very very slowly. If I put weight on it its ok at times, and then sometimes if I twist it a little I have a pretty bad pain. Sometimes it just feels like its in the top outside of my right calf. Other times it feels like it radiates all the way up to my hip. The calf itself is still very tight. At times I can put all my weight on the leg and it feels fine, other times if I'm walking it just hits like a brick and I almost fall from the pain. It feels a lot like my IT band felt last year when it was hurt but I don't think the IT goes down below the knee. So, I'm thinking it has to be either a calf strain or calf tear. Maybe even a tendon. Worst scenario would be a stress fracture I suppose. I really don't have a clue and it is very frustrating not really knowing. I can't seem to find anyone or any info on a similar injury yet. With the holiday it's pretty much futile to try to see a doctor. I do have an appointment Monday for a massage if I can walk then. So here I am 3 days after running 26.2 miles, not even able to walk to the bathroom. What I really hate the worst is the fact that all the nay sayers to running can say, I told you so.

By the way, I really did have a good marathon and would do it again tomorrow even if I knew I would be hurt. It was that awesome.

Tulsa Route 66 Race Report

Ok race fans, here is my attempt at a race report. Actually I could write a lot more but hopefully this sums most of it up and I apologize in advance if it's too long.

Tulsa Route 66 Marathon – 11/18/07

Pre-race:
Annette, Kelly and I all drove down together early on Friday morning. After getting checked in to our rooms, we tied to find a place to eat. We were staying at a Hampton Inn in Sand Springs. We drove around for a while and couldn’t find anything but fast food. We wanted something good! We found a Western Sizlin and stopped there but about that time a whole football team arrived so we just left. We didn’t want to wait in line. From there we just went on down to the Expo.

Let me tell you, the roads around Tulsa are some of the worst I have seen when under construction. The exit to our hotel was blocked off and the exit to the Expo was blocked off with construction. No detour signs or anything. The downtown area looks like a war zone with road construction everywhere. Somehow I lucked out and found the Convention Center.

The Expo itself was ok. Not real big but there were several running stores there with some good deals. We got our race packets, bought a few things and headed back to the hotel to wait on the others that were coming in that evening. After some of the others arrived we all wanted food very badly. Since there was nothing good really close by, we opted for the Western Sizlin we had been at earlier. It was still a good meal.

On Saturday morning we met with Brenda, Vickie, Paulette, Kim, and Kelly to do a short run in remembrance of Ryan Shay who died during the Olympic Marathon Trials in New York. I only ran 2 miles, Annette, Kim, Brenda and Kelly did 3 miles. Vic and Paulette just did a walk. It was sunny and very warm, even though it was 45 degrees.

Saturday Morning Run - Kelly, Kim, Paulette, Annette, Vicki, Kim

Later that morning we went to the expo again so the others could get their race packets. Several other Cruisers were driving up Saturday morning and they were going to meet us there. We did the whole expo thing again, but we were getting hungry again. We decided to eat a snack there and wait on the others then go eat. Well, things took longer so we decided to find the race course and drive it. Somehow I found it. I guess I was lucky again. We didn’t drive it all but got a general idea of most of it. We didn’t however anticipate the hills that we would run in the race. That was probably a good thing though. After that we headed back to the hotel to wait on the others. The plan was to go to dinner early so our food would have time to settle.

We ended up going to Spaghetti Warehouse in the downtown area. Somehow I got picked to be the lead vehicle and by some stroke of luck I drove right to the place. I think there was a total of 15 of us there for dinner. It was awesome! Carb loading Saturday Night

After getting back to the hotel everyone went to their rooms to get everything ready for the race. We were all getting very anxious and excited at this point. I actually slept really well that night which was a big surprise.

Race Day:
We were all up early Sunday morning to hit the continental breakfast before leaving at 6:45am. Everyone arrived at the race site together around 7:15am. I think there were 15 in our group with 3 carloads of people. The weather was perfect, about 45 degrees at start time. I think it was cooler than that actually. As the race went on it probably got into the upper 60’s to low 70's and there was a little fog along the river early.

The group - Front row: Rock, Annette, Bob, Lisa, Jane(blue), Cindy(green), Andrea, Susan, Brenda
Back row: Rick, Me, Kim, Kelly, Vicki, Paulette

Lining up at the start

The race has begun!

After the start, we went 300 yards and then had an uphill to a bridge that crossed the Ark. River. By mile one I was ready to dump my throw away shirt. Jane and I ran together for probably 23+ miles which really helped me conquer this beast. There were several cool bands playing during the first 3 miles and then one every now and then afterwards which added some fun. We had our pace down, our nutrition down and were just behind the 4:45 pace group for about 4-5 miles. We tried to slow it down a little with our pie in the sky goal being anything under 5.

At about mile 7 I started having issues with my right leg just below my knee on the outside. Still not sure what it is. But I felt it all week thinking it was just pre-marathon pains. We were doing the run/walk program and took our quick walk breaks pretty religiously every mile. We were probably 1-1:30 ahead of pace at this point then at mile 8 I had to stop for just a few and try to stretch my leg so we lost some time here. It didn't help any that there was probably only 8 miles or so that wasn't concrete in the whole race! By mile 9 I was thinking there is no way I can do 26.2 with this leg acting up. For a split second I thought of DNF then I thought no way. I’ll finish if I have to walk or drag my leg in. It was very hard to get moving after the water stops. I probably looked like a lame horse or something but I was determined to finish. The 5:00 pace group passed us around 8 or so and I knew we couldn't hang with them. That was kind of a downer. At that point it was just about finishing. Once I got running I was ok which was weird. Walking hurt worse, running was not bad. A few times we even ran extra hard to make up time. I think we took a bathroom break around 10 which always loses time but we kept moving forward. After 13.1 I took 3 Motrin to help the leg and a mile or so later it actually felt better but it was too late to make up the time.

It was pretty humid, and we did sweat a lot. Lucky for us we packed our own stuff because the water stops seemed too far apart and I only saw a couple that had gels. They were spaced about 2-2.5 miles apart but we ran past a lot of them.

Somewhere around 14 we went through the town of Jenks. It was really cool as it had little shops along the road and they were all playing Christmas music. It was deserted though except for the runners so it was some what surreal.

Jenk's looked like a ghost town.

By mile 15 I had actually figured out how to start running again after walking. If I bent my knees and squatted down with my hips a little it was easier to start and much faster. Usually it’s a struggle for me when I get more miles down. Today it was a struggle from 7 on. Having someone to run with made all the difference in the world and without Jane I would have struggled much more. I think we helped each other a lot, if nothing else we always knew when it was gel time and when it was electrolyte time. We did a gel every hour and electrolytes every 30 minutes or so. Every mile we got a drink from our bottles. I’d have to say nutritionally we did it right. We never hit the wall.

It seemed like from 14 on the miles were longer than a mile but we knew they were not. Around mile 18 there was a band playing some head banger music and they were singing something like “you’re not going to make it”. It was weird….we needed some good rock and roll and did not want to hear that crap! I think at 19 we had some Belly Dancers on the corner. They were just standing there so I told them to start dancing, we needed some motivation!

I thought I was seeing things, belly dancers on the course

Mile 20 was a nice sight to see, I told Jane that it would be like walking on the moon after this, going places where we have never been, but then the race director tricked us. We turned into a nice little area with bars lining the streets and there was a big Star Bucks. The first one we saw in Tulsa in fact! At the end of that street we made a left and then it was all HILLS! These were not little hills either. The race director told us on Friday that it was only gently rolling hills. Wrong!! These were close to Greystone hills. The bad thing was it was like this up until half a mile from the finish. There was not very many nice down hills either. Needless to say, not very many people were running up these. I ran up a couple which felt good on my calves but after 21 miles, I really didn’t want to get a muscle cramp at the end and with the bad leg I was pushing the edge anyway. We plodded on, and I think at about mile 23 Jane went on ahead of me a little ways. I tried to get her to earlier but she wouldn’t.

This is usually the start of "The Wall" but it was the home stretch for us

There was a couple decent short down hills around 25 that I took advantage of. At one point I thought I might finish under 5:25 then I’d see another hill so I had to re-adjust. Then it was 5:30, and then it was 5:35 which I did beat. All the hills at the end were just WRONG!!

Kim, Kelly and Annette running me in to the finish

Just before 26 after I turned the corner I saw Annette and some of the girls running towards me. That was a sight for sore eyes! They ran me in till just before the finish chute where I did a short sprint to finish it off. The rest of the group was all there cheering me also as I rounded the corner. It was awesome!! Final chip time, 5:32:45.

Me running to the finish line

I actually still had some gas in the tank at the end but the leg just didn’t work good, mainly walking. Walking afterwards was probably harder than running those hills. I moved very slowly, but it’s just the calf or whatever is wrong. My hips were really starting to hurt on those hills too. Afterwards I got my medal which is AWESOME and my finisher’s shirt which is a long sleeve tech shirt. I did get one piece of Pizza but all the food was gone.

Tech shirt and medal

The super cool "My First Marathon" medal. You can't buy this, you have to earn it!

The best part of this whole experience was the support of all the Cruisers. Just knowing that they were all waiting at the finish helped to keep me motivated. I was not going to DNF and let them down! Annette finished her 1/2 Marathon in 2:18:15 and set a new PR. Jane's final marathon time was 5:30:07 and was her first marathon.

Annette finishing her 1/2 Marathon

Will I do another?? Heck Yeah! Even though there were many times I was thinking why in the world were we doing this, it was still a lot of fun. One other thing about this race was the marathoners that were running with us at times were so nice. We carried on conversations with so many people and they really liked our Cruiser singlets. We met and ran with one guy that ran a marathon in Mountain Home on Saturday and then Tulsa Sunday. He said he has run 79 marathons so far since 1999. He doesn’t run them for speed, but for the accomplishment.

I can say this was one heck of an accomplishment and yes, it was hard. I could have had a much better time if it hadn’t been for the injury but like everyone says, you just never know what the day will bring till it happens. I was lucky to finish.

Post race - I can barely walk this morning. My hurt leg does not want to cooperate at all. Sleeping was hard last night, I think everything from my hips down was hurting. But this is what the marathon is about. Conquering and overcoming whatever it throws at you. Guess it’s on to recovery now.

Here were my mat time splits:

10K – 1:09:57 – 11:17 pace
15K – 1:52:22 – 12:05 pace
Half split (13.1m) – 2:35:52 – 11:54 pace
27K – 3:27:06 – 12:25 pace
33K – 4:17:28 – 12:34 pace
Final - 26.2 miles – 5:32:45 – 12:45 pace
Avg. Heart rate – 162
4142 Calories

Special thanks first to my wife Annette for being there for me and taking part in almost all of my training runs and taking care of me post race. Jane, for being a great running partner and putting up with me for 23+ miles along with several training runs. Vickie, for her experience, advice and inspiration throughout my journey. Brenda for always having the right training routes along with inspiration, advice and caring. Coach Dennis for his encouraging words that always kept me thinking “I can do this.” And of course, all of the Cabot Cruisers which are too many to name. Their support, experience, wisdom and inspiration always kept me thinking that there is no way I can fail.