NCR marathon 11-26-2011
Sorry for the late replay. Had a dinner tonight and I was cooking New Mexican. Had a great run today. Bob and Josh were smokin. Yours truely didn't do too bad. Not quiet the 3:20 I hoped for but those hills the last mile and a half took their toll. Managed a 3:21:06 and placed 46th overall out of at least 460, pretty happy with that for an old guy. It was a PR by 7 minutes so I'll take that. Perfect weather and mostly flat course helped. I may regale you all with the boring details tomorrow. Right now I am ready to crash and burn. I have to get up at 5am and run a 20 mile trail run tomorrow. hahahahahaha!!!!! Taking a few days off. Hope to see you all Thursday. Next stop Boston, are you ready Mark. I think can keep up with you now.
** Need to find the detailed description. I lost it when my laptop hard drive crashed. NO Backup
Race description from memory as of April 19, 2013
Parked in a business lot about 1-2 miles away and rode a bus to the school. Hung out in the school with Josh and Bob until start time. It was cold to start, but we would warm up quickly. I started out on pace at 7:38. The first 2 miles were downhill and on the road before turning onto the Rail Trail. The first half of the rail trail was a slight grade up of 4-5%. Not too bad for the most part. There were a few sections that were a little more steep. Ran with a man in the Airforce for a few miles on the trail for the first half of the race. He was here with his wife and daughter.
The halfway point was around 14 miles. The return on the trail was shorter as it turned onto the road closer to the school than where we got on the trail. This left about 2 miles of rolling up hills. I had maintained my 7:40 pace to the turn around. Now I had some down hill and picked up the pace. The sun was shining and getting a little warm now. Around mile 20 or so we were moved around a doe the had fallen off a cliff and was lying on the trail injured. I actually think the doe was deceased, but they still guided the runners on a wide path around the fallen deer.
Finally reached mile 23-24 and turned onto the road surface. It started out mostly flat. I approached a house where people had gathered at the end of the driveway to cheer on the runners. They saw my will run for beer shirt and promptly offered me beer. I declined, but thought one of these days I would partake of a beer on the course.
The flat road soon gave way to rolling up hills. There were a series of 3 uphills followed by flat area. Up to this point I was on pace with 7:38 per mile average. I did not plan for these hills and this would cause me to miss my 3:20 goal. My pace slowed on each hill. My legs were tired and did not have the ability to continue at pace going up the hills. Each hill I lost a little more time. My watch was also a little longer on mileage. This extra mileage on the watch with the hills caused me to end the race with a 7:41 per mile pace and a 3:21:06 marathon time. Not to shabby and a PR
