Austin AT&T Marathon today. Beautiful day. This was Daniel's first marathon. Karen F., Lynn, and I met Daniel at 6:20 in Starbucks on 6th and Congress in Austin. Had a fun pre-race time, and then when the race started I ran the first mile with Daniel and Karen. I had my digital camera and my video camera, and took bunches of pictures, pre-race, during the first mile, at mile 5, and then I ran the last half of the marathon with Daniel. Got lots of great video and pictures of Daniel's race. Karen had to catch a plane to Paris this afternoon so she couldn't stay for the finish.
Daniel overcame some serious foot pain in the left foot during the last few miles. He overcame the pain and the stress and finished a grat marathon. Karen H. joined us during the last few miles, as she had run the last half with Joe B. She ran back and joined us.
Daniel weighs 271 lbs. He had lost 40 lbs during his training. As he ran the race, his heart rate would bounce at 174 and peak at 180. We ran 6 minutes, then walked 1 minute. By about mile 17 we changed that to run until the 6 minute beep, and then walk until his heart rate got down to 150 which usually extended the walk break for about 30 seconds. I can't imagine running 26.2 miles with my heart rate bouncing at 174 for most of the race. As he would tell me his heart rate I would check mine and it would 30 or 40 beats lower than his. Amazing he could keep up such a great effort. He is actually in the best shape of his life, and has made some great life changes that will benefit him the rest of his life. He even has Pikes Peak Marathon on his radar screen, perhaps for next year. I predict a year from now he will weigh another 40 lbs less than he does today.
Now Karen H. and I are focused on Boston in 2 months from this weekend. Her friend Carey ran her first marathon today and she finished in 3:31. What a great first marathon. Carey may get signed up for Boston and join us as well.
Tam ran a great marathon for this tough new Austin Marathon course. He said he finished at about 3:45. His goal was 3:30, but on this tough course this was probably the best effort he has ever done. He almost set a PR, that had been done on the much easier Austin Marathon course, the old downhill one. Way to go Tam. For some reason I don't see Tam's results on the official web site, so I wonder what that means?
We really had a great time today helping our running friends with their marathon. The post marathon talk and cheers with Donnie were great. We have awesome video and pictures after the race. The finish line video was really good too. My son is going to take the video and the digital pictures and make a DVD for Daniel. | 