…don’t ya hate it when you do something really stupid… like, say, completely overwriting your website’s theme without making a backup…
Ah well, I guess I have a project to work on this evening… :)
Update: Well, I guess it was time for a change anyway… I think this new theme will do until I have a bit of time to customize it… I kinda like the layout, but as it is it makes me look like much more of a Mac fanboy than I really am…. ;)
Ok, it has seriously taken me too long to write about this… sorry about that!
Anyway, I’m very please to report that everything with the marathon went really, really well. The weather was perfect, a little cool in the morning but not too warm by the time the race finished, everything went smoothly along the route, and, as sick and twisted as it may sound, I had a really great time running 26.2 miles… :)
The race started off on Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall at 6:30 AM. My friend Scott dropped me off a little after 6:00, so I had plenty of time to get stretched out and ready to go. I have to say, it was pretty cool being on the Mall that early and seeing the whole place packed with nothing but runners…
Since it was pretty cool that morning I decided to wear my fleece jacket for a while. Luckily things worked out perfectly and Scott returned with my parents just before the start of the race and I was able to pass the coat off to them just before taking off…
I won’t bore you with a mile-by-mile recap of the race… :) The first couple miles of the marathon were really cool though, because everyone was still pretty tightly grouped together… I was really neat just to be part of a huge mass of people running down Main Street and the Corner…
After a while (especially after the half-marathon runners hit their turn-around point) though the field got pretty thin… which was nice too…
I have to say, Scott and my folks did a great job of finding spots to cheer me on (though, I guess I did give them directions to a couple of them… ;)). The first spot was near mile 10, right at the top of the first really big hill… It was definitely nice to have them cheering for me as I reached the top, and my dad even ran along with me for a little bit, which was really cool…
Anyway, things went pretty well until miles 22 or so… By that point I think I was getting just a little tired… :) Also, that stretch was pretty much all a slow, uphill run… I ended up walking a fair bit of that, but I think it all worked out for the best, because after a little break and some Goo ™, I felt ready to finish things off…
My friend Margaret offered to run along with me towards the end of the race, and I met up with her (along with Scott and the family, who had been joined by Dante, Libby, and MB) right around the start of mile 23… It was definitely a huge boost to have her run along with me and cheer me on for a few miles… I think I lost her on a particularly grueling uphill stretch, just before the last mile (which was all, thankfully, downhill ;)).
The home stretch of the race was pretty uneventful. I always seem to save just a little bit of energy for the end (either that or I was just REALLY ready to be finished), so I turned on the speed a bit (the downhill helped with that too) and finished the race at a good pace… Much to my mother’s dismay since I was apparently running too fast for her to get a good picture… ;)
I ended up finishing with a time of 4:28:20, with an average pace of about 10:17 per mile… pretty much exactly what I was aiming for…
I was pretty much exhausted after crossing the finish line, so you’ll notice there are several picture of me just chillin’ on the curb while people gather round me for pictures… :)
After some much needed snacks and hydration, it was home for a very nice (and also much needed shower). My parents decided to head back soon after that to check on my grandmother (or, more likely, to check on my uncle Eddie who offered to take care of her while they were away), and then Scott and I met up with the rest of the gang for a somewhat sizable lunch at Cheeseburger in Paradise…
Ah well, thus ends my talk of marathon glory… :) All in all, thing went better than I ever expected they could… The race itself was a ton of fun and amazingly my muscles seemed to recover pretty quickly afterwards, so I was hardly sore at all…
I do want to say a HUGE thanks to everyone who cheered me on, whether you were at the race, or sent me a card or e-mail, or if you just thought about me while I was running that morning. I definitely couldn’t have done this if I didn’t know that you guys were out there believing in my… Thanks! :)
Anywho, if you want to check out some pics from the race, you can find those here:
or, if you want the high-res one, you can grab them from the Google Picassa Web Album version: