Comedy Finish at the Texas Marathon

For some reason, this picture of Nancy and I with our big medals makes me think of Jacob Marley and his chains!!!

Nancy and I successfully avoided all the drunk drivers and drove up to Kingwood REALLY EARLY this morning to run the Texas marathon. I drove the first part, but I've been up late most nights for the past few weeks working on a design project, so when Nancy offered to drive the rest of the way I just crashed in the passenger seat.

The course for this marathon is four loops of the beautiful trails of Greentree park (two for the half that Nancy was running). I set my marathon PR at this race last year, but was not expecting to get anywhere close to that time today.

I ran the first few miles with Ryan Beard, and the rest of the race by myself. The first two loops passed by without much incident, but I ran into a few problems on the third. I had not hydrated properly in the week prior to the race (unless you count beer), and was too lazy to make Gatorade the day before. I paid for this when my calf started cramping around mile 18. I would be running along without any problem when it would suddenly lock up completely and spasm. This usually hit in the split second after I'd passed someone, which meant I kept having to stop and work it out.

This happened on and off for the rest of the race. I kept downing Gatorade at the aid stations in the hopes that it would help, and it did a little. I flirted with the 4 hour mark, but was a day late and a dollar short as I finished about a minute over 4 hours.

The funny thing was that as I came up the finishers chute with everyone cheering me in, my calf completely locked up. I tried to compensate with my other leg and keep going, but then the other calf locked up too. I ended up stiff legging it across the line, which must have been hilarious to watch.

But I guess that's what you get for doing zero training in the weeks leading up to the race, eating all kinds of junk, staying up late and not drinking enough (water). Oh well, considering everything I'm happy with the time. And I did enjoy the course.

Plus the pizza afterwards was delicious!!!

I particularly enjoyed sharing the trail with Nancy. I stopped and hugged her every time we passed, and she had a blast on the half. It's been many years since we were able to run a race like this together.

I would love to have a lie-in tomorrow, but I can't. My road group is running 30k, so I'll be back out there making up for my lack of recent miles with another 19.

Happy New Year everyone!!!