Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon 2013


On Sunday, April 28th, I ran the 2013 Memorial Marathon in Oklahoma City.  This was my 4th time running this marathon.  I had several reasons for running it.  It's our hometown marathon, it's for a good cause, and I felt like I needed to stay in long distance shape.
This year rather than put any pressure on myself to run, I decided to take it easy.  Two friends of mine were the 4 hour pacers, and so I decided to just stick with them.  Not that 4 hours is a walk in the park, but I felt like I could hold that pace without pushing myself.
Race morning I found my pacers and stood in the corral with them waiting for the start.  It was fairly cool but predicted to warm up quite a bit before the finish.  National Anthem, 168 moments of silence, plus 4 more for the Boston victims and then the gun.  It took a couple of minutes to cross the start.  As usual it was pretty crowded for a few miles.  Things went almost like clockwork with no major issues.  I've been dealing with some pain just behind my big toe on the ball of my foot.  I had bought some "dancer's pads" and this was really my first test in them.  While I had some pain, it was no where near the level that I had experienced in training runs, and my run in Scotland.
The pacers and I hung together the entire race, and finished in 3:58:31, almost perfect timing.
This was a good race for me, I did get hot near the end, but nothing serious.  Some runners experienced dehydration issues, and a few had to be hospitalized.  I'm thankful to have finished with no apparent injuries.
Thanks to Chuck for the picture above.

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