I ran this marathon one week after Boston - 6 days to be exact. I had never run a marathon on back to back weekends. I was sore all week from Boston (soreness from cramping) and could barely walk on Wednesday (hadn't felt like this after a marathon since I can't remember). Thursday is hockey night and Sat was traveling day. So I didn't have much time to get ready for the race.
My goal was just to finish and take it easy.
As part of my 50 state goal is to run marathons with special theme/meaning. This race matches that - it is a sad/somber theme but also a race for hope and moving on.
I had never been to OKC before so that meant I had never visited the Murrah Federal Building/Memorial. I arrived into OKC Sat morning, checked in to the hotel, stopped by the expo and then made my way to the memorial. It is a touching memorial. It was there that I was reading the mementos family members left on the fence that I saw a poster/poem for Julie Welch. I didn't know nor do I have a connection to her but what got me was our birthdays were four days apart. I read the poem for her, found her chair and then decided to run the race for her. There was a table at the expo that one could go through the list of people who perished during the blast and run in the race in their honor. So after visiting the museum (that was tough/emotional at times viewing some of the personal effects) I made my way back to the expo and got a name tag for Julie Welch.
Race day came around and I awoke to temps in the low 50 with rain. I knew it was gonna rain so it came as no surprise.
The organization at the start was abysmal. There were family members in the corral holding umbrellas to keep (family member) runners dry and the only way into the corrals were from the back of the pack so when the gun went off people pushed the fences out of the way and entered from the sides.
Off we went on a rainy (decreasing) and windy (picking up) day. At about the 3/4 mile point, this older gentleman (Jay) asks me what pace I'm gonna run and I say 3:30 to 3:45. So to make a long story short, I run the next 22.25 miles with Jay. Jay started to feel the effects of the pace we were on and I lost him at mile 23 (but meet up with at the finish line party).
Good thing I ran with Jay because after I lost him, I got this crazy notion to run fast the last 3.1 miles and I was doing fine with that pace until 25.8 when I could feel my legs begin to cramp so I pulled it back (which is hard to do) and finished in 3:41. Not a bad time considering that walking was literally a pain 72 hours earlier.
Off to South Bend but this time, I'm giving myself a month to rest up.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment