Marathon # 10 Snickers

I just had to laugh when I wrote that cause I never thought I would say I just finish my 10th marathon. WOW, the time has gone by. 4 years ago weighing in at 305 pounds I decided to try and loose some weight by joining a biggest loser program. Well 3 months later and about 50 pounds off, I won and then my running career started.

The night before Snickers we were able to have a good pasta dinner while listening to others talk about their stories. Well one caught me off guard when a man sitting at the table with me was talking about being only the 3rd person to try and get a sub 3 marathon in 5 consecutive decades of his life.
That is crazy. I can even break 5 hours yet and this guy has been doing it for 50 years.

After dinner, Mandie and I sat with Tommy Chambers and his family at the Peachsports table. Tommy is the official photographer for the marathon. He really comes up with some awesome pictures for us.

The expo was nice but small. I think they had about maybe 10 vendors with my best one being RunFit sports. It is so nice to have a great local running store that has everything you need. And if they don't have it, they will order it for you.

Race day: did not sleep well. I was thinking about this race for a while. This is my race where I have come so close in the past. I laid everything out the night before so that I would not have to think about it in the morning. I got dressed and tried to eat a little breakfast before going out in the cold. OMG, it was 29 degrees. COLD. I put a trash bag over me before going out so that I would not get frost on me before running. As I made my way to the start line I ran into Kenny and Stef. They were going out to run the half-marathon. We walked to the start line and then I was off to run by myself. BOOM time to run.

As I made my way to the 1/2 mile mark, I came across a friend from Macon, Karen, who was running her 1st marathon. She said she was running 2:1 and I asked if I could join her cause that was the same thing I was running. We agreed she would keep up with the intervals on her gymboss and I would keep up with the average pace. We went out fast for the first 4 miles with an average of 11 min miles. Karen told me that she was trying to finish somewhere around 5:30. I told her that if we kept that pace we had a great chance to beat 5 hours.

We continued on our journey trying to slow down a little to conserve energy. When we hit the halfway point, we were averaging an 1130 pace. I was feeling good. We continued on until I came across my point in the race where I crashed before, mile 16 and 18. A big thank you to Karen for getting my attention off of the past and trying to look ahead. She was awesome in her 1st marathon.

I told my wife that if I did not break my 5 hour race that I just wanted to finish with a smile on my face. Well I did just that. When we came across the 25 mile marker, I saw the official clock and it said 4:58 and then I knew that it was over. Once again I failed myself. Then I looked over at Karen and said NO I am going to still have fun. I am not going to be mad at myself. I was going to push myself to finish, look good for Tommy while taking pics and finish with a smile.

We went into the train depot and that is when it hit Karen. She looked at me and said we are going to finish. Then I looked at her and said yes we are and now you are a marathoner. When I did this race 3 years ago, I had a runner tell me the same thing and it brought back so many memories. I told her to sprint into the finish and finish strong. She did and so did I.

SMILES EVERYWHERE!!!!!!!!!!