The short version of my race report:  it rocked!

I had come up with a kind of hare-brained plan for race day, but I couldn’t wait to get started.  I parked my car by the U of M Les Bolstad golf course at 6:30am, stepped out into the rain and started my run for the day.  The biggest disappointment of the day happened right then – when my {redacted} Garmin would not turn on!  I had it on the charger for several hours the day before, it said Charge Complete, and yet nothing.  I was so totally disappointed that my stunt wouldn’t get recorded.  Anyhow…

The 4.8 miles to the start were awesome.  I just kept it an easy jog, and kept telling myself to slow down and enjoy it.  I stopped at the Highway 280 bridge on Larpenteur for a nice view of downtown Mpls and over towards St. Paul.  It was awesome to think I would be covering all of that on foot.  I got to the 10 mile start right after the 1st wave left.  A course marshall thought I was trying to crash the start!  I looked around but didn’t see any of my friends who were running, so I just wished them all a great race and kept jogging to the Metrodome.

The race itself went awesome.  I over-hydrated as usual and had to stop and pee like every 3 miles for almost the first half.  But since I had a distance goal and not a pace goal I didn’t care.  The rain started just a few miles in and at first wasn’t bad.  But the cold (mid-40s) in addition to the pounding rain got rough.  I had 2 layers on, including long sleeves, so was fine but my hands got pretty cold.  It took awhile for them to function well – I would still had trouble opening my CamelBak around mile 18!  But in the end the rain let up and the temp was absolutely perfect for running.  Kelly and the boys met me twice on the course, and that was absolutely wonderful.  Poor Nessie was with them, and just yelping that she couldn’t join me.  I full-on stopped and talked to them both times and had a nice break.  My parents and sister were on Summit and I did the same there.  It was so fun!  It was really freeing to not have a pace goal; I walked when I wanted, took breaks when I wanted.

The CamelBak was awesome to wear.  I partially filled it at the start and again around mile 18.  I took an S! cap every 10 miles, and a gel every 5.  One thing I love about the S! caps is that my stomach stays settled – I was SO HUNGRY!  I was eating bananas, Twizzlers, Snickers, almost everything people were handing out.  A guy ahead of me at one point was talking about cheeseburgers and I was dreaming someone would be handing those out.  No luck.

My finish time was something like 4:09, and I’m totally happy with that.  I felt like I could have taken a break at the finish, and then gone farther.  I ran 31 miles that and was cramped and sore the day after, but still feeling way better than at Grandma’s.  Now 5 days later, I can’t believe how great I feel.  I’m an unofficial ultrarunner now!  And I won the 50k division!!  😉

I’m thrilled that I set a distance PR, but I’m also please that I feel like I corrected so many mistakes I made for my first marathon.  I probably didn’t train as hard for this race, but I trained smarter.  That feels great.

Random Memories

• The soldier running with the flag by the cathedral, with a shirt that said “for those who never made it back” – and running in combat boots.
• The woman at mile 18 that was having asthma trouble, forgot her inhaler, and the EMS station didn’t have one.  I was wishing there was something I could do; just tried to encourage her to take it easy and take walk breaks.  I still bet she finished ahead of me!
• Peeing on the fence at the Sculpture Garden with about 30 other guys.
• Running through a huge fog around Calhoun, that was a sweaty-runner body-cloud.
• Passing by tons of people in pain in the last 2 miles – severe leg cramping/seizing, head to trees to vomit.  I’m thinking they had all been pushing to make sub-4 but were crashing and missing it.  I felt bad for them, but was glad I was running at the right pace for my body/training that day.
• Shoes and socks feeling like they weighed 10 pounds with water weight.  Was trying to avoid puddles for awhile, then it was just pointless.  I got through a couple miles by planning how I was going to take my shoes off for the last mile, and finish barefoot!  (didn’t do that)
• Thinking around miles 2-3-4 that the crowd of runners and fans was almost too big; freaking me out a bit.  I was thinking that I really enjoyed my solo training runs, and running at the cabin with my dog so much more than these big races with the crowds.
• Hands so cold I couldn’t open my CamelBak to refill.  Asked a teenage volunteer to do it, but he was so nervous helping me he kept twisting it the wrong way and making it tighter!  So I had to open it after all and fill it.  Youch.
• Seeing Matt Pattern along Summit and making a fool of myself!  Matt caught my attenion because he was yelling “The pain is only temporary!!” and i was wondering if it was Adam.  But Matt was right, and that battlecry really jazzed me up.
• Seeing Helen at the finish briefly, and hearing she ran 3:24 – wow.  And then hearing that Joe Z and John Storkamp ran sub-3s – seriously wow.