Siouxland Lewis & Clark Marathon (Iowa)

Within the goal of running a marathon in every state; I have little themes. One of those themes is running all three Lewis & Clark Marathons. The Lewis & Clark Marathons are run in Bozeman, MT, Sioux City, IA and St Charles, MO. I ran Bozeman, MT last year and the ironic thing is that Lewis and Clark Marathon was a redemption run from the previous marathon I had run north of Vegas a month earlier. Turns out the second Lewis and Clark Marathon would also be a redemption run after the horrible showing at Crazyhorse two weeks earlier. So....

On a cold (37F) foggy morning with a southeast wind at 6mph we were off. The first 5 miles were actually on the Nebraska side of the river and wound through corn fields, neighborhoods and parks before we crossed the bridge into Iowa. From there we followed the Big Sioux River where we could peek into South Dakota. As we headed north we made a turn into Stone State Park which contained a few miles of uphills. Up until this point (mile 16) I had been pretty consistent with 7:10/miles except for the four potty breaks I had up until mile 13.

At the half I had a 1:35. Not a bad time but I've been there before (i.e. two weeks ago). I hit the hills and the pace slowed to 8+ min/mile. As we approached a steep point on the "last" hill, I decided to walk it and I was passed by two runners. I'm thinking oh no, here we go ahead and then to cap it off, I hear, "couple hundred yards and it is downhill". After several minutes and another uphill, we finally hit a downhill. Now I don't know what is wrong with people thinking if a course gains elevation why on earth they would say it is going downhill. Maybe it is the cold winters or something in the water?

Anyway, I come out of the last uphill, go into a slight downhill before it evens out again. By mile 18, I'm back to 7:10/miles. My legs are feeling good, I passed one of the runners who passed me on the hill and I was gaining on two others. I felt really good at this point. I had only lost a minute or two and was estimating somewhere around a 3:12-3:14. My GPS was off from the mile markers and I don't do math very well when running even though I got a minor in math in college but bottom line I knew I had a sub 3:15 lined up. I passed another runner at mile 21 (he had passed me at mile 3 potty break) and with each person I passed and every comment from the fans I knew I had this race.

Around mile 22, we started running along this little creek/river on the local bike path (which was actually closed to bike traffic that day - kudos to race director). The bike path had a short out and back before we actually got onto the path. It was at this point that I caught back up (or was pretty close to) the last guy who passed me in the hills (he was a good 40+ seconds in front of me). It was also at this point that my left foot started to cramp a little and that usually signals a leg cramp is not far off. I kept estimating my time and I was still 3:13 to 3:14. So I decided to lay off a bit and averaged 7:20-7:25/miles. I didn't care about catching the guy in front of me at this point, I just wanted to get a BQ. The bike path was an up and down affair, not too bad, but probably enough to keep the legs from cramping.
Finally made it off the bike path and into the home stretch. The last 1.2 miles seemed more like three miles. Not sure why this was but it didn't matter. I hit mile 26 and knew I had a sub 3:15 locked up.
As I rounded the corner for the final .2 miles, it was such a relief to recover from the collpase from Crazyhorse. I rarely show emotion crossing a finish line but a fist/arm pump followed by some clapping and a smile was well worth it - a 3:14:37, 4th age, 11th overall, and second best marathon time.