Route 66 Marathon Race Report

It has been a crazy week and I am late getting this report out, but I ran the Marathon on Sunday, Julie had surgery on Monday, we went to Illinois on Tuesday for Thanksgiving and drove home yesterday. That is a full week.

I was looking forward to the Marathon as it is a hometown Marathon and I can sleep in my own bed. I have ran the race all 4 years and I did not want to miss it. I had only made one long run of 21.5 miles at the Mock Marathon since the Leadville Marathon in July. I knew I needed more training, but I had been running well and did not have anything to lose.
I showed up at the race and had to deal with this yahoo. This Brian Hoover of TATUR and Runnersworld fame, the best running store in Tulsa. Brian was also doing the Marathon and so was a lot of his training groups that meet on Saturdays in the same location at Veterans Park.

After I talked to Brian, I had to make my way through this mess. I had waited too long and barely made my way up to in between the 8 & 7 minute pace markers. After the wheelchair people took off, We were able to scoot closer. I was having trouble with my new Garmin as I was trying to put in a quick workout course for the Marathon and every time I did, it would shut off. I was hoping that this would not be a sign of a really bad day. A Marathon can be a great experience as well as a long day.

At 7:30 AM, we were off. We were lead off by the classic police car and some of the 1/2 Marathoners took off at a faster clip than I wanted. I hit the button to start my Garmin and it just re-set to zero, which is what the other button is supposed to do. I did it again, same thing. I tried it once more, ditto. So, I decided that as long it would hold out, I would just look at my pace and use that.
Another shot of the start.

Michael Wardian and Zac Freudenburg were racing each other for the Guinness Book record for a Marathon pushing a stroller, which Michael already owned at 2:42. They had made a deal to look at each others kid as they did the Marathon. Great teamwork! This is at the 10K spot.
Mark Dolph on the right coming through the 10K marker. He keeps getting faster and faster. I think he ran a 1:19 at age 51.
Here I am at the 10K mark. I felt pretty good at this time and my split was 42:31. I was headed to the West Side and then downtown. I wanted to go through the half at 1:35 and see what I had left on the second half. I made it through the downtown at 15K 1:08:35. As I was heading downtown, I saw Pete Orban already heading to Riverside, what a stud.

The downtown part was a little hilly, but not bad. Somewhere on Denver I met up with the slower 1/2 Marathoners. This got pretty congested. I passed one older guy and he muttered, "you suck." Come on, I'm busting my tail here! At the water stop on 11th, people were stopping or slowing down and I almost plowed a girl over to try and get some water. This continued as I headed south on Riverside.
On Riverside I hit the half at 1:35:17, pretty close to where I wanted. I was still running on the opposite side of the street for all the congestion I was hitting. At about mile 14, I started to feel it a little. Nothing major, but I knew I was going to be a pushing it on the second half. Once I lost the 1/2 Marathoners, it got pretty lonely and boring. My pace started to slow and I thought it was going to be a long day. I was still running about a 7:25 pace, but I was slowing down as we were heading into the wind. I saw the stroller guys heading back at just past 51st street and Zac was in the lead. I ran to the turnaround at mile 20 and I thought I could maybe make up some time up as I was out of the wind, no such luck. I was still able to run around a 7:55 mile, but it was a chore. I kept everything going and I finally hit that spot where I knew I was going to finish.

Here I am just coming to the mile 26 marker and I was able to pick it up a little. My last two miles had been over a 8 minute pace, but I was heading home and I knew I was going to make it under 3:20 and qualify for Boston.
This is the chute for the finish and I hit it pretty strong and crossed the line at 3:17:46, well under the 3:20:59 for Boston. There were 3 guys that finished ahead of me by no more than 30 seconds in my age group. Oh well.

It is too bad that Boston closed on Nov. 13th, but at least I am in for 2011. I ran a pretty good race considering I had not done much Marathon specific training. I know I can do even better, but I am really happy with the result. The weather was perfect and I could not have asked for anything better. Zac did break the stroller Marathon record by 10 minutes and also won the entire Marathon. How cool is that! The Route 66 Marathon is one of my favorite races and I look forward to next year already. Results can be found here.