What a race! After enjoying a week of touring the Nation's capital, I topped off my week with a marathon! I have put modest miles in for this race, and I consider the training I did rather solid. I was rather pleased with my overall performance. At 5:15 a car load of girls came to pick me up at my sister's home in Sterling, Virginia, about 50 minutes away from the District. There were four girls in the car besides me, and they were all geared up to run the half. I think that they were all more nervous than me to run the half. Two of the girls were running their first race and they were asking all sorts of questions to the other girls in the car. I was kind of laughing at the Q&A session. It was rather entertaining. We got to RFK Stadium and stood in a line of about 20 people waiting for one P.O.P There was another one, but a young lady had been in there for about 30 minutes. I was getting rather anxious to get to my coral, so I left the girls and ran to find the bag drop. After about ten minutes, I finally found the armory where they were keeping all of our goods. I ran to the coral and listened to the National Anthem. Gun fired, and off we went. I started way too fast. I had been in front of the 3:10 pacer for some time before he caught up to me. At that point, I knew I needed to slow down or else I would be paying for it big time. I was at mile 4 by that time and I hung with him until about mile 6. Hit my 10k at about 47 minutes. Ran and tried to avoid all of the crazy half marathoners. There were numerous times I was caught behind big groups of men. Why do they travel in packs like that? Just spread out, my heavens! Hit hills between miles 6 and 8. The split off from the half marathon wasn't too easy. My body kind of wanted to stop with everyone, but I had to keep going. 1:38 was my half time. Fair. I knew it was time to now maintain my pace, be strong, and think positive thoughts. Every time something negative would pop up into my mind I would say to myself, "Blah!" Strange, but it seemed to work. Miles 16-18 were kind of boring. We went through a tunnel for more than a half mile. My GPS signal was gone. I could see that I was not the only getting annoyed by this. Other runners were glancing at their watches and mumbling.
Now the race entered a beautiful part of D.C. Anacostia. Hehehe, we were totally in the ghetto. I was nervous when I noticed there were no more volunteers and there were police everywhere. My sister told me before the race that she won't even drive there because it is unsafe. Here we were running up and down the streets, made me a little nervous. I didn't see many people out and about, I think they were all still sleeping. At mile 22 I still felt rather fresh. I really could not believe I only had four miles remaining. My pace felt relaxed and easy. Mile 23 there was a band with little cheerleaders about the ages 8-10. I heard one of their mothers across the street yell, "You shake that baby, you shake that for your Mama!" I had to laugh. Then came mile 24, the hills of death. Three hills made mile 24 well, uphill. My legs at this point were rather tired of turning and climbing up and down the hills of the city. I was ready to be done. I cruised the last two miles and finished at 3:25 something. I was very pleased with my time. Spring marathons can be rather challenging and I think this race geared me up for some summer marathons.
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