This actually was a great race for me. I can't complain when I PR my marathon . my prior best was a 4:43 so i beat it by just over 3 minutes. I started out fine, my plan was to be right at 10min/mile for as long as possible and not hit every water station, plus when I did get water not to walk it if possible, but drink on a slow jog. So Gu's on the hour, water only until mile 10, and I hit my plan very well. I never felt out of breath, HR was great through out, in fact up to mile 21- i was still on a 4;20-25 pace, unfortunately my left knee just "stiffened up" to the point that I couldn't do a regular side and I kept trying to get it loosened up again, but nothing seemed to work so I just shuffeled all the way in. But hey stuff happens, I was still passing lots of people from the 22 mile point on in, and my mile split for mile 26 was a 10:25 on a bad leg. It hurt just the same when I walked on it so I figured just to keep going and get it over with but The sign that said we had 1 mile left was an outright lie. rat finks !!!!

I had a blast running it though.. I'd rather be a little too cold than the 80 degree we had yesterday. I was in running tights and a long sleve shirt which I could pull up when I was getting to warm. then we only got about 5 min of steady rain just before the lake, and once we got to the lake the wind made it seem much colder. I was telling people not to shed to many clothes early since it gets colder at the lake and the forcast called for temps to drop as the morning progressed.

the hills at mile 19-20 are not that bad but they really got to me today, that's when I realized that my knee didnt have much left, I just couldnt' lift up that leg to really charge up the hills

I was really proud of myself though at keeping a steady pace for most of the race, and when my leg went south sticking with it.
By the time I got home, took an ice bath, had a couple of tylenol's and a big glass of crown & coke my knee didnt hurt. took the dogs out for a quick walk even.

avg HR for entire race 150. HR was never an issue was very steady the whole way
I had the laps set at auto-mile on my garmin. It was dead on accurate up till the 12th mile when it would say the mile was .2 before the actual mile markers. I spoke with a few people afterwards with garmin's that all said the same thing and that their total milage was also 26.5
laps are every mile on the garmin

lap#1- 9:49

lap#2 - 9:53
lap #3- 9:52
lap#4 - 9:49
lap#5 - 10:46 - walked up hill
lap#6 - 10:21
lap#7 - 9:58
lap#8 - 9:31
lap#9 - 9:44
lap#10 -10:07
lap#11 - 10:01
lap#12 -10:01
lap#13 - 9:59
lap#14 - 10:11
lap# 15- 10:43- GU opening issue
lap#16 -10:15
LAP#17 -10:42
lap#18 - 10:48- starting to have left knee issue
lap#19 - 10:29
lap#20 - 11:59 walked up hill
lap#21 - 11:59 stopped to stretch out leg- the wheels were starting to fall off
lap#22 -11:10
lap#23 -11:45
lap#24 - 12:09 ouch really having problems with knee now, surprised it wasn't slower
lap#25 -11:48
lap#26 -10:25
lap#27 - 5:33 this is for the .2 miles?????? which comes up as .56. mileson the garimn

I need to lose weight,, at least 20 lbs and 30 would be better actually. i'm wondering if that is why my knee just suddenly decided that it didn't want to bend anymore

the inside of AAC was cold, grabbed a quick bite to eat, said hello to CLint and gina then headed home for an ice bath and stiff drink, used my new stick on my legs..


I think if my knee didn't freak out on my I would have broken 4:30. I can't complain, but might start a thread how I'm upset that I didnt' hit my goal and I'm giving up running anyway :).



they didnt' have finisher t-shirts this year, just hats, which is no big deal I don't really need another shirt.. water stops had plenty of water and gatoraid when I went through them, the cold weather didn't stop the volunteers from coming out. not as many bands as in the past it seemed and they didn't seem to have much food afterwards.
I was told that this year they actually hired a company to put on the race instead of having it being all volunteers, didn't really notice a big difference but I'm glad it sold out.. I talked with lots of people that came in for this race from out of town/state just becuase they heard it's a fast course. It be nice to have this keep growning and be a bigger race. they capped it at 5000 marathon and 10,000 half and relay