Lewis & Clark Marathon

Last Sunday took me out to the suburbs of St. Charles to attemt my first full marathon. My sister Katie and I had been on a very loose training program for the last 4 months. I was fairly confident I would finish, but not so sure what the clock would read when I crossed the line. We started nicely packed, almost 4,000 runners split between the half and full course. A large group of St. Louis Hashers made it fun, running with people you know. (A couple hashers also set up a couple beer stops on the course, which was appreciated by this guy.) For most of the first 13 miles, I ran with a fellow hasher Postage Tramp. It was good running and talking, I was able to keep my mind off what was ahead.

Unfortunatley, many of the runners were only doing the half marathon, so after that the course emptied out and I was running by myself. At about the 16th mile, my legs bagan to throb. My muscles tightened up and threatened to cramp. I was forced to walk for a lot of the rest of the course. It was serious pain, relieved little by the torrents of rain that came down over the last 4 miles. Luckily, Biscan was there towards the end and finished the last 2 miles with me.

I finally crossed the line, wading through 3 inches of rainwater and dodging lightning. My final time was about 5:31. I believe that is over a 12 miniute/mile pace. My first half was at 2:05, so I am a little more proud of that than my final time. Overall, I'd say the results were a little disappointing, but I am glad I tried it. It's good that I have at least one under my belt now. I certainly have motivation to do another one to improve on a time I know I can beat.

Another runner in the race was Dean Karnazes, who is attempting to be the second man ever to run 50 marathons in 50 days in 50 states. The Lewis & Clark Marathon was the very first one in his quest.

The race fee also included photos apparently, I received a this link in my e-mail yesterday. Apparently they snapped thousands of photos of the runners, then mathced their numbers to their e-mail addresses. Pretty cool system, but I don't think I'll be buying any of these photos. Feel free to take a look.