Well, yesterday I completed the
Little Rock Marathon. Had to do it...
it
was billed as having the world
biggest finishers medal, and by golly it did.
Started out with a LONG drive
over after work on Friday. Michelle was
awesome and drove the whole way
over. For some reason the past couple
of
weeks I have not been sleeping
good so she drove over and I slept. Got
to
sisters about 11 ish. Went straight to sleep even though I had
slept the
whole way over.
The expo was really well
done. Small but good. At 3:30 there was the 1st
quarter meeting of the 50 states
club which I recently joined. Over 100
members there, it was an AMAZING
meeting. Saw Clifford from Mississippi
there. Darndest thing, I have run with him at 4 marathons now by
accident.
Just see him and we are at the
same pace. We are the same speed at
the
beginning (he always kicks it up
at the end and I die out). Had a great
time seeing him again.
Race morning came at 5:30,
everything is almost a ritual at this point...
get up, get dressed, eat
breakfast, drive in, ready-2-do-it!
Great start... It was
uneventful, but very easy. One of those
where
everything went so smoooooth
that you didn't notice anything really good OR
bad.... just smooth. That's a REALLY good thing.
I wore a HUGE parrot hat. This thing sits 2 feet above my head. I knew my
sister was gonna be trying to
see me so I figured Iıd wear something that
would be visible for blocks away
(and it was!!). This thing is
obnoxiously
big and colorful. I got comments all day on it.
The first 10 miles or so just
totally clicked away. I was with Clif
and we
were chatting and running. I really remember more of the conversation
than
the run. If I couldda only kept up with
him...... About 10ish he was
feeling good and I knew I had
started too fast so I slowed it down. I
wasn't feeling it too bad at
that point but KNEW I would be. I have
been
running long more lately in
training for the hundred miler so I am sore and
probably running at 60% of
normal. If I run slow I can make 60% go
a LONG
way, but if I try and push my
normal pace it bites me in the butt before
long......
I remember the Governors
mansion, Central high school, some awesome 1900ıs
(and maybe 1800ıs) houses. By about the half I was actually, for the
first
time ever, thinking... you know
stopping at the half isn't THAT bad. I
SWEAR the only (stupid) reason I
kept on going is I saw someone at the half
point walking with their medal
and I knew how much bigger the whole one was.
I know, itıs not about the
medal... but at Little Rock, itıs ALL about the
medal. 13.1 down, 13.1 to go...... how bad can it be, right. Come on, you
can do it.....
Well, by 13.5 the mountains had
come. Now this isnıt ultra hills, weıre
not
talking about thousands of feet
of gain, but at this point I was hurting.
For the first time in a 26.2, I
was actually in pain... gut wrenching,
cussing, fussing, this ainıt fun
no more pain. I have read that
sometimes a
bad day running an be a good day
training because you find out how to dig
deep and run through the pain to
the happy place. I wanted to find that
happy place SOOO bad. up, up , and away......
The next 3 miles or so were more
hills than I have experienced outside of
Lake Tahoe. It was up, turn a corner, more up, turn
another corner and even
MORE hills. It was character building type stuff. Under better
circumstances I would have been
all over it having fun, but I was STILL in
pain. oh well... I was the funny guy in the parrot hat.. I had to have
fun.
If you've never run in a funny
get up, do it... folks have more fun than you
would believe when someone in a
funny get up comes by.
Anyway, back to the
race...... this proved a very old
adage... what goes up
must... now you finish
it...... MUST COME DOWN. Yep those big ups came
down at double the rate and that
was brutal. The pain that was
noticeable
before was now SCREAMING. but at 18 you are gonna finish it no matter
what.
All I could think of is if I
canıt do 26.2 then 100 is not even an
option.... had to keep on
running.
Got to the dreadedı out and
back I had heard of. No biggie
really. Itıs
about as long as the local out
and back I do so thatıs how I looked at it.
I was really at a low point in
my marathoning career here though. It
was at
mile 20 now.....
I was down to walking, slowly at
that. I knew I could walk 30 min miles
and
still make it so I thought why
the heck not. this one guy kept passing
me,
then Iıd pass him, heıd pass
me...... lather, rinse, repeat. Anyway
I
finally looked at his bib and
his name was JESUS. Yep, you read that
right,
Jesus was leap-frogging me. Ok, at first I thought I was hallucinating,
then I thought maybe it was
hey-zeus. Nope... I said are you
Jesus. He was
like Yeah, that's my name. OK, I have often heard of people seeing
Jesus in
a marathon, Iıve heard of people
crashing at mile 20, but I crashed and saw
Jesus all at once. Seeing the humor in all this I busted out
laughing....
almost falling over to the point
of having to stop running I was laughing so
hard. Jesus said are you Okı.
I told him my story and asked am I gonna
make itı he said youıll be
fine, just keep on runningı. I took
that as a
sign. Jesus said keep on running and youıll be Ok. I feel a second wind
coming on :) I kicked it up and by golly I ran almost the
whole thing from
there to the end. Itıs funny... it was just a Mexican guy
named Jesus but
the whole thing struck me as funny...
bordering on painful gut wrenching
hilarious, but it worked.
About mile 21 I got passed by
Bob Dolphin. Ok, hereıs a 75+ year old
marathoning guru passing me and
I couldnıt keep up to save my life but I
kept on running. Jesus said Iıd make it so I figured that was
all the
encouragement I needed. Bob was on FIRE and ran like the devil was
on his
tail (if only he knew Jesus was
right behind him hahahhahahahaha). Hey
Bob,
you beat Jesus!!! I haven't ever seen Bob run so good. I was SOOO
impressed at how he was near
gliding. Count me as impressed! I hope to be
as good a runner at 35 as he is
at double and then some my age. What an
inspiration he is to everyone he
meets.
On to the capitol and the worlds
largest finishers medal. about 22ish I
was
thinking of taking another walk
break when I caught up with 2 GREAT 50
staterıs and I ran with them all
the way into the finish line. Probably
helped me by 10 min at a
minimum. Great conversation always
helps the
pace!!
This is a fantastic finish line
by the way. The last half mile you are
staring at the state capitol
which is a replica of the US capitol and the
words FINISH. It was just perfect. The whole race could NOT have been
better. Honestly, I can usually find something I
would change but this is a
great race. Nothing to change...... nada..... OK, there NO beer at the
finish. None, nada, zip, zero. AND you cannot buy beer in Arkansas on
Sunday. Take everything I said back. This race stinks. No beer......
Well, if that's the worst thing I can complain about
you know this race was
110% great. Oh, and the finishers medal is obnoxiously
large.
What a great race. If you haven't done LR, go for it. It's a great race!
Andrew