Shamrock Marathon (Read 791 times)

Hey guys, sorry I haven't posted yet, here are results: The marathon went really well this weekend. I woke up around 5:00 am to get ready for it (start time: 7:30), ate some whole wheat pita bread, a banana nut multi-grain muffin, two bananas, some omega-3 natural peanut butter, and some coffee, along with about 1.5 liters of water. My girlfriend and my friend Josh drove over to a parking lot near the starting line and walked over after breakfast. I warmed up by jogging an easy mile on a golf course, and then I got on the starting line. The race started out a little bit faster than I expected. My goal time for the entire race was 2:40, so I planned on going out in 1:20 for the first half. However, some of my close friends were running and I realized that running with people would be a lot more enjoyable than running solo the entire time. Furthermore, the wind was very ferocious throughout the entire race, so I couldn't afford to not have people to work with. Anyways, a strong wind at our backs coupled with being nervous led the first mile to be a 5:40. We eventually settled back down and kept running between 5:55 and 6:05 mile pace for the next 20 miles or so (I went through the half marathon in 1:18). I was running with my friend Bert, my friend Jon, and some Ethiopian guy named Sunya-somethingorother. I talked to him a little bit during the race but I couldn't understand anything he said. The wind was terrible from mile 6 to mile 19, so we had to draft off one another and trade leads quite a bit, but it worked out well. At mile 21, I found out what "hitting the wall" really was. I was still able to run a 6:00 mile on that mile, but it was painful. I knew that the pace I was running was great, so I knew as long as I got to the finish line everything would be great. I was somehow able to finish those last few miles (my last one was pretty slow, 6:39, compared to the rest of my race, but not as bad as some people I passed who were really crawling at that point) and I ended up getting 7th place and running 2:39:11 which beat my goal time. Thus, I was very happy. Results can be found at www.shamrockmarathon.com.

Congrats George! I actually saw your time before you posted here, but didn't want to steal your thunder. That is an awesome time for a first marathon. Is it all out of your system, or are you aiming at doing another?

Thanks guys! I suppose I am eventually planning on doing another, perhaps Shamrock again next year or perhaps Boston. Right now I'm just focusing on resting (my right calf is pretty painful right now) and regrouping to run some road races for fun over the summer. I seem to get hurt before every summer so the goal this spring from here on out is to stay healthy! Thanks for making such an awesome log, eric! And thanks everyone on here for your support!