Well, Yesterday I completed the marathon and I thought it would be best to place my race report here. Well I woke up at 4:30am and had breakfast, thinking two hours before the race would be plenty of time. I got ready and left the house at 5:50 am. There was plenty of parking when i arrived at Lambeau Field. At 6:00 i did my usual mile warm up. By this time my wife and her mom had arrived and i meet up with them. Instead of checking my stuff in the gear check my wife took it for me. Then at 6:40 i had to go to the bathroom and i got into the porter potties line. Unknown to me this is the time I should have been finding my place at the starting line. I did not get to use the bathroom until 6:50. By the time i got to the starting line there was not way to make it too the 7:20 pace sections. At first this worried me but there was nothing I could do and since the race was chipped timed this minor detail wouldn't effect my race performance. Though it did result in me passing people the whole race until mile 18. The start of the race went off in time and it took me two minutes to get to the actual starting line. I was pretty much able to get right to my pass of 7:20. I had to do a lot more weaving then I wanted to but I don’t think it affected my race at all. The first 6 mile I had to tell myself to slow down and was running 7:18 pace. After that I comfortable settled into a 7:20 pace but I was still feeling good and thought that it was a good pace. Until around mile 14. At this time the pace was getting a little harder for me to maintain. At mile 16 the course went over the Fox river. I don’t think this was the biggest hill on the course but it took something out of my legs. My pace going over the brige slowed to a 7:35. I never recovered. For the next 4 miles it was a fight just to maintain the 7:30 pace. At the Wall (mile 20) my pace slowed to an 8:00 pace. It was a fight and I had to resist the desire to walk. I knew if I stopped running I would not be able to start again. Those last 6 miles were the longest of the race. It was weird my legs did not burn like they do in shorter race I just couldn’t life them up and make myself go faster. The fatigue came on so gradually I hardly noticed it. The course went through Lambeau Field right at the end and usually I would have though that this was cool but at this point in the race I did not want to be running. The tunnel into Lambeau Field was hard concrete which made my legs hurt more and the material around the Field was a rubber matt, which made me feel like not all my energy was propelling me forward but dissipating into the mat. I think these feeling were all in my head but I was hurting at this point. I felt like all I was doing was shuffling my feet. I was so happy to see the finish that I tried a little kick, but that lasted all of two seconds. I shuffled across the finish line and I was really happy to be done. As soon as I stopped running I felt the fatigue in my legs and immediately had trouble walking. I was so glad that I had not walked earlier because I knew for sure not that if I had I would not have been able to run again. My final time was 3:18:39 seconds. I am very happy with this time and this was my first Marathon. I left everything I had on the course. I should have started with a slower pace but being my first Marathon I thought I was a lot faster then I actually was. I now know what my body is capable of doing in a Marathon and my next one should go a lot better. For now I plan to rest for a month. I plan on running 10k and 5k while increasing my mileage. I don’t think I ran enough long runs before the marathon and running 5k and 10k will keep me motivated because I love those shorter races. I hope to run my next marathon in the fall of 2009. That should be plenty of time get my miles up and forget the pain that I am in now. Here are some pictures Me and Wife Before the race. Me at the Half way point Me crossing the finish line. Me post race Orion

Nice job both of you guys! Orion, I'm guessing you passed me at some point during the race if you started somewhere farther back in the crowd since I was right behind the 3:20 pacer at the start and finished behind you at 3:19:38. It would have been a pretty good sized pack of runners to pass, I would have been the skinny guy in the REALLY bright yellow shirt hanging at the back of them. BTW, the bathrooms outside Lambeau Field were open and hardly had any wait at all. I stood outside one for a few minutes until someone came out and said all the urinals were open and lines were only for the stalls.