Twin Cities Marathon

The most beautiful urban marathon in America. Usually. Today it was OK, but not so beautiful in the rain and mist. Fifty degrees with a facing breeze for most of the race and, for a while, a heavy rain. Nevertheless, the weather was WAY better than last year’s 85-degree scorcher, and no problem at all compared with the rain and wind we experienced at the Lewis & Clark Marathon three weeks ago, courtesy of hurricane Ike. No apparent danger, today, of the race course being flooded out. This rain was quite a bit colder though - my hands were reluctant to open the Clif Shot packs and my feet felt like stumps, but after getting out of the wet shoes and taking a warm shower I could feel my feet again. My 30th marathon is finished, and all is well.

Time: 4:38:44, pace 10:38, number 14 of 35 in my age group. Plenty good enough. Four minutes faster than Grandma’s Marathon, and this is a more-difficult course, but then Grandma’s was a warm race. Not quite comparable.

Complaints: Knees were FINE! Yay! The left calf threatened to cramp up much of the way, but it never did and finally it gave up and acted normal. Hip flexors were a problem - they started to hurt somewhere after the half, and just got worse as the miles rumbled by, eventually slowing me because it helped to walk a little. Toward the end I walked often. The hip flexors have bothered before, but they haven’t stopped the show. I was tired, too, and the walks were welcome.

Splits: 9:46, 9:49, 9:36, 10:09, 9:37, 9:38, 10:14, 9:17, 9:49, 12:50 (porta-potty), 9:39, 10:30, 9:49, 10:38, 10:17, 11:08, 10:12, 10:59, 10:52, 11:18, 11:35, 12:34, 12:27, 11:17, 11:46, 11:00, 1:57, total 4:38:44. I ran a Galloway-inspired "run a mile and walk a minute" system. That worked fine, and partly because of it, for the first time in 30 marathons I managed to click my watch at every single mile marker without missing one, because I looked forward to each mile with a little extra anticipation. I see that most of the miles up to 13 were under 10 minutes, and all of the miles after 13 were over. No surprise - I certainly could have been better trained. Caffeine gels every four miles and salt twice. I think the salt may have helped with the potential calf cramp.

Saturday, Oct 4:

Easy 3 miles or so with the SCV Runners, most of whom walked . But I prefer to run a few miles on the day before a marathon, or the day before that. No time or exact distance. Ready for the marathon. Or not, we’ll see.

Thursday, Oct 2:

Three plus miles on hilly local streets, no problems at all. I feel great! Early-morning runs are so enjoyable in the fall. Splits: 8:57, 8:47, 9:24 (1.1 mi), 1:46 (0.2 mi), total 28:54, overall pace 8:45.



Recent fruity breakfast: Gluten-free oatmeal with organic flame raisins and dried cranberries, mango, kiwi, organic apricot, organic pecans, nonfat organic milk.