thanks to Grandma’s Marathon!
Sunday, June 22nd, 2008So the run went off quite well yesterday, aside from a few hiccups. We had some last minute entrants show up just as we were going to start, so when the blackhawks did the flyover at 0600 on the dot, we were still inside. But we finally started about 0607, and the bird circled around again to do a flyover for us. They had the US flag strung up in the bay door, and it looked perfect! They then hovered over the gate, so as the runners were stretching out the first leg, the chopper was just about overhead. Really cool–not many marathons can include that kind of spectacle!
The turnout was a little less than we hoped for, but that’s a result of some mission stuff, and that we held the event on a Saturday, rather than Sunday. Supposedly, we would have had a lot more runners from the other task forces in KFOR if we had held it today. But we had a pretty good showing all the same. I think the super cool t-shirts Grandma’s hooked us up with helped.
I feel pretty good for having notched my first marathon. Our fastest finisher came in about an hour ahead of me, at 3:43. I came in under 5 hours (4:49:38), but this course had its significant disadvantages. While I’ve never run Grandma’s in Duluth, it sounds as though that course is mostly downhill. What we ran yesterday had significant amounts of ascent as well as descent, and due to some confusion on the course layout, we ended up running 26.7 miles instead of 26.2. So we got an extra half mile for our money too!
The weather was perfect for the first lap, but I got a little sun-burned on the second. So now its back to work, and focusing on getting home!