Started great - nailed the kind of pace I wanted to hit for the first 10 miles. Was running with a guy named Jeff who had run 10 marathons before this one and was keeping it nice and smooth. Gu's were being taken in when I had planned on doing them, and drinking was just right. Mile 3.5 saw my friends cheering me on. Mile 4 was my father whistling (loudly). Mile 8.5 was my mother madly waving and shouting for me. (That caused me to really smile big!) At mile 10, I decided to pick up the pace a little bit but probably pushed it too much.

I felt good blowing past the half marathon finish and seeing the number of people in front of me drop drastically reminded me that yes, I really was running a marathon. Mile 14 is when it hit me: all those hours of training I had done, all the hours of solitary running in the cold, wet, and wind I had done, were for this.

Made it to mile 15 and I saw Dr. Ensign, my advisor from school, running in the opposite direction, 4 miles ahead of me. We exchanged pleasantries, and I kept on. By mile 16, I realized I was getting a bit warm, so I decided to drink a bit more water and dump some on my head. What I drank on top of my Gatorade Endurance (that I had trained with) started to give me a case of side stitches and after I would dump water on my head and then turn into the wind, I got amazingly cold. I bailed on the water, both intake and dumping, and started to breathe to the side stitch.

My frieds had posted themselves up at mile 16 and that gave me a needed lift, especially after 6 miles of solitary running. At mile 17, I was within ear shot of the finish line, and I could hear the announcer calling out the names of the half-marathon finishers. The marathon runners by now were VERY spread out, and there were sometimes when I couldn't see any body in front of me or behind me. What I did see, when I could see other runners, were people walking, heads hung, staring at the ground. I'd see somebody running in front of me on a long straight-away, running, then suddenly bail off to the side and start walking. It seemed like, even at my relatively slow pace, that I was picking people off left and right.

At mile 20, my friend Dave started running bandit with me. We chatted (it was more one sided than anything) and Dave told me what he felt like at his first marathon, while he re-loaded me with two more Gu's to be eaten at miles 21 and 24. We continued to catch up to and then pass people.

By mile 22, it felt like I had been running for 6 hours. I told Dave that it felt like it was 5 o'clock in the afternoon, but when I checked my watch, it was only 11:57. The wind was still crushing, coming in off the Atlantic. At mile 23 I started walking through the water stops. I had to force the Gu at mile 24 down; I just didn't feel like eating, but I knew I should. At 24.5, it started to rain, and hard. It only lasted about 10 minutes, but it was enough to cool me down. Walked through another water stop at mile 25, and hit the main thoroghfare for the last time, heading south, into the wind.

With the finish line in sight, Dave peeled off, telling me congratulations. I gave him my fuel belt, kept the same pace, and started to see my friends and family in the finish chute. I got excited, hearing the people cheer me on and suddenly started to cramp in my right thigh and left calf! Thank God this was happening IN the finishing chute and NOT at any other point in the race! I cruised over the timing chip mat, was given my medal, picked up my metallic blanket and powerade/water, and kept walking. I started to get a little choked up thinking about what I had just accomplished.

I just ran a marathon! From a 295lb smoker in May of 2004 to a 190lb MARATHONER in February 2006! Holy crap! Sometimes I still can't believe it!

Go longer than 20 miles in training. I kept telling myself that I was going to do great, that my 20 miler was good, and that I was going to feel allright during the marathon. I had never considered that running a marathon was adding an additional >25% on to a 20 miler distance.

All in all though, it was pretty darn good for a first marathon!

Walked around, drank some powerade/water, had a bannana, hung with my parents for a few minutes, then showered. Propped my feet up on a wall for 15 minutes to get some blood flowing again, then slept for 1.5 hours.

Feasted on the Captain's Sampler at the Crab Shack on Tybee Island - Snow crab, Jonah crab, mussels, crawfish, sausage, potatoes, shrimp, corn on the cob. Ice cream for desert.


Nothing. I did the best I could during this marathon!


A great first marathon. Lots of volunteers made this fun and the locals were pretty good sports too!