Great race! My only complaint is that I didn't get to meet Allie :(
Official time and details coming soon. This was by far the best Marathon I've run. Even aside from my time,
every aspect of this race was better than any I've run before. The course, the support on the course, the bands, the enthusiastic
crowds, it just couldn't get any better than this. It was such a
positive experience that I never worried even once about meeting my goal. I actually had a lot of fun during the first 20, maybe even too much fun :) Everybody had something to say about my flaming running outfit so I would always
comment back with "thank you" or "I wore this just for you; my fans mean everything to me" or "I'm burnin' I'm burnin' for you". That gernerated a lot of chit chat between me and the other runners around
me too. Everyone I came in contact with was so friendly, I've never been so social during a race. I know I wasted a lot of energy runnin' my mouth instead of my feet, but it was fun.
We drove down to Eugene on Saturday
morning and stayed at the Travelers Inn which is a total dive, but it was clean and the manager was super friendly. He even offered to drive
me to the start line in the morning. After the race he wanted to hear all about it and was very happy for me. He insisted that I load up with
bananas and muffins left over from "breakfast" when I checked out too.
I was up at 5:00am for coffee and my pre-race ritual of realeasing the
hostages (that was for Burt). At 5:20 I received some encouragement from baldnspicy on facebook, Thanks Wes, you're a cool dude. At 6:30 when the hostage negotiations were finally over, I headed to the start line and found my way to the 3:20 pace group where we heard the national anthem and were sent off by Linda Prefontaine. The first few miles were mostly downhill and I didn't even notice the uphill stretch between3 and 5. I was looking forward to the "big one" at mile 8 and it was a breeze. Miles 14-15 came with a strong headwind that slowed me down a bit, but I was back in the 7-teens and still feeling good after that. At mile 18 I started feel like I was working a little harder and decided to back off the effort a little, hoping to save enough for a strong finish. I figured as long as the 3:15 pace group wasn't passing me I was fine. At mile 20 I picked up the effort, but my speed didn't change :( By 22 I was sure I had hit "the wall", at mile 23 the wall hit me! About this time I also remembered that there was no 3:15 pace group so I probably wasn't as fine as I thought.. I was too tired to fiddle with my watch or to do the math to see how slow I could go and still BQ so I just pressed on and tried to think about how short a 5k is. That's all I have left to do right? Only 5k left between me and Boston! My quads felt like hardening cement and from there each mile was about 30 seconds slower than the last even though I was running harder. I sure hope I looked better than I felt coming across the finish line. Post race recovery was quick considering how spent I was. I downed a couple bottles of water and some bananas and was ready to go. I still can't believe how much food there was in the finish area.
They really take good care of their runners.
I REALLY, REALLY APPRECIATE all the encouragement and advice from everybody here at FRB. I would not have done this without you! I'm looking forward to meeting as many of you as possible next year in Boston!Distance Split pace
1.00 7:19
2.00 7:12
3.00 7:13
4.00 7:16
5.00 7:23
6.00 7:13
7.00 7:11
8.00 7:14
9.00 7:09
10.00 7:12
11.00 7:15
12.00 7:18
13.00 7:17
14.00 7:28
15.00 7:24
16.00 7:19
17.00 7:18
18.00 7:25
19.00 7:30
20.00 7:31
21.00 7:37
22.00 7:40
23.00 7:57
24.00 7:51
25.00 8:02
26.00 8:33
26.30 8:56
BQ and a 30 minute PR! | 