Amazing Marathon

Because it felt so good. What a turnaround. Two weeks ago I ran the most painful marathon of my life, and today I was pain-free the whole way. No complaints from knees, hips, or hip flexor muscles, just a minor thing in the left hamstring, nothing new. Probably, the difference is due to a new running regimen of 60 seconds walking (fast), and 30 seconds running, much easier on the joints. I was actually able to speed up a little in the last six miles, going to 30 seconds walking and 30 running, though the splits don't reflect it because much of it was uphill against the wind.

Muscles are sore and stiff, of course, it was still a 26.2-mile jaunt, but no cramps and I think they'll be better tomorrow and every day thereafter. Yay!

This was the Cox Sports Marathon in Providence, Rhode Island (where they run rhode races). I like this marathon:

• Well organized, including the expo. People could even pick up bibs on the day of the race, though it was discouraged.
  
• Lots and LOTS of cheerful volunteers, even for a back-of-the-pack runner like I was today.
  
• Enough spectators that I heard "Go Don" a lot of times. I wore my name on my shirt as always.
  
• Much of the marathon was on a beautiful trail with a brand-new surface, going through parts of Providence that are not accessible any other way.
  
• The trail was not closed to normal use, so we mingled with walkers, other runners, and cyclists, no problem.
  
• In the last mile or two we found dozens, maybe hundreds of cheerful signs encouraging the Team In Training (TNT) runners, who raised a lot of money today for research into leukemia, lymphoma, and myeloma. I like them a lot.
  
• The trail was nearly flat. The roads were not flat, but all on all it was not a "challenging" race. Flat enough.
  
• Pizza for runners along the way and at the finish line! I don't eat pizza, but others were enjoying it.

One negative: Quite a few of the miles were on roads which were not closed to traffic. The running area was usually coned off, but almost always on the right shoulder, so we were dealing with cars whizzing by a few feet away, and with the running surface always tilted the same way. I found myself looking back over my shoulder a lot to be sure the next driver was paying attention. Other runners expressed relief when we did get to the bike trail, which is not crowned like the roads. Nevertheless, I like this marathon and would run it again.

Marathon number 51 and state number 34 completed. Feels good. I've reached a point where I can list the 16 states that I have yet to run. Six Clif Shot gels, chocolate with caffeine, and probably about eight Thermotab salt tablets. Lots of water, the temperature was in the 60's much of the run. I wore a cap for vanity reasons (badly in need of a haircut), but learned to prefer a visor in warm weather because it's easier to dump water on my head. :-)

Two very nice photographers took videos of me running. They think it's surprising that a person can run 51 marathons with myeloma. It seems normal to me. I love running marathons! It's a masterpiece.

Splits: 12:10, 12:10, 38:10 (3 mi), 12:08, 11:42, 11:40, 11:58, 12:03, 13:02, 12:53, 12:27, 1:13 (0.11 mi, 2:41:35 total to here), 11:21, 12:28, 24:57 (2 mi), 12:43, 12:58, 25:09 (2 mi), 11:32, 12:35, 12:38, 12:10 (4:57:55 to here), 27:37 (2.22 mi), total 5:25:32, fourth of eight in the age group. Pretty consistent pace.

Sunshine and me after the race: