Well, it’s that time again – time for another marathon recap! Last weekend I ran the Kenai River Marathon. Kenai is about 3 hours south of Anchorage, so I went down the day before with my dad and my 3 year old son and we all camped out.
I ran most of the marathon with Ted, which was a pretty awesome experience. We had done a 20 mile training run together earlier this summer, and it’s just really nice to have someone with you for such a long run. We had the same pace in mind for the race, and we had agreed ahead of time that if either of us just wasn’t feeling it, then the other shouldn’t feel bad about going ahead. Well, around mile 22 or 23 I was really losing steam, so Ted went on and finished about 4 minutes ahead of me. Me? I finished in 4:06:27, still shy of my goal of a sub-4 hour finish.
Yes, I was a little disappointed to not finish sub-4, especially after just barely missing it last time. But I definitely underestimated this course a bit. Most of the course was relatively flat, but around mile 18, there were 3 big hills back-to-back that pretty much zapped the rest of the energy that I had. The last mile or so my legs were starting to cramp a bit, and right about mile 25.5, my left thigh cramped big time and I had to stop running for a moment to walk it off.
All in all it was a great day though. The temp was 37 when the race started at 9am, and got up to the low 50’s by the time we finished, though there was a decent wind that kept things pretty cool.
The best part of the race? There were only around 35 runners for the full marathon, and I actually got 2nd place in my age group! Probably not something that’s going to happen again very often 🙂
Next up is the Marine Corps Marathon in October, and then I’ll be a proud Marathon Maniac!
Enjoy that age group award — I don’t care how big or small the race it, it’s something to be proud of. If people think they can do better, then they should enter!
Congrats on another marathon!
I’m like a week behind on my Google reader, so I just saw the post where you made the switch back to here. Glad you did — “A Healthy Dad” is your brand something I always liked.
Thanks David. I felt the same way – making the initial move felt right at the time, but I quickly began to miss my old home 🙂