Lincoln National Guard Marathon - RunMarathon

I was a little nervous about what pace we were going to run because i'd never ran a full marathon before. I had been running the half marathon portion of my training runs around 1:51 so I figured give us an extra 18 minutes and shoot for 4 hours. I posted on BT for some help as well and there were several that said it was too fast and other that said it should be fine, so I went with the 4 hour pace which is around 9:12 miles.
We started off right at 9:00 using my Timex Ironman GPS watch for pace and everything was chugging along until about mile 2. Then scott has to go pee. uggh. So we stop for that and lose about a minute. Then at about mile 5ish he has to go pee again. uggh. this one went a little faster and we lost about 45 seconds. then at about 8 or 9 miles he had to go pee again. uggh. where we lost about 1 minute again. Things went really smooth after that and I had to force scott to keep drinking water. he literally wanted to stop drinking water because he kept having to go pee. lol I told him it would stop sooner or later and it did, that was the last time.
We clicked along just fine occasionally dipping into the high 8's for miles, but shooting for 9:00 to be a little faster than the 4 hour pace (and to make up for all the pee stops)
We finished the first half in 2hr 2m which i was pleased with considering all the pit stops. oh yeah, we also walked about every other water stop which slowed down our time a little.
I've ran the half marathon portion of this course twice about 5 years ago and both times finished the half around 2:25 and it felt really good to finish the half (while doing the full) in just over 2 hours. It was also surreal to see almost everybody peel off to finish the half and we kept going straight. dam, that was cool :)
The wind was blowing pretty good all morning (15-25mph I guess), but from mile 13 - 20 it was a tailwind and we knew we were going to pay for that later because the second half was an out and back.
We chugged along at our 9 minute mile pace out to mile 21, then things started to get interesting...
The first sign was when I took my GU just before we started going up this hill. I believe the hill was slightly smaller than Mt. Everest, but maybe it just seemed that steep. I chomped down half of the GU and my stomach started to tell me that it didn't like that very much. So I figured i'd wait about a half mile for the next water stop and finish it with water to see if that would help. well let me just say it's not a good idea to run with a half empty GU in your hand. I looked down and i had managed to squeeze it out all over my hand. yuck!! So I'm trying to lick it off my salty hand and with the wind it was stringing out and flying everywhere. quite a mess, but I managed to get it mostly under control. lol
But, unfortunately my stomach at this point told me it REALLY didn't like the last GU and I should probably not be doing that anymore. I took some water at the next stop after that nasty hill and I was full on trying not to throw up. Deep breathing and everything.
Oh, and at this exact same time we were on the back portion of the out and back so the 15-25mph winds hit us like a wall. uggh
My buddy Scott tried to run up front to help me out with the wind, but the combination of the wind and my stomach in full rebellion made the last 6 miles a lot tougher than they should have been. I told Scott we should probably slow down to a 10 minute mile pace to see if my stomach would calm down and it didn't really help. We walked at all of the remaining water stops, but it was very difficult to drink water. I would drink half a cup and my stomach would freak out. I knew I had to keep drinking because my mouth was getting a little dry, but it wasn't easy.
We chugged along until about mile 25 at our 10 minute mile pace and I absolutely couldn't take it any more. I told him we had to walk for a minute because I was burping & doing everything I could to hold it back. We walked a couple times for about 30 seconds or so the last mile, but we managed to plug along.
Now, I'm sure it doesn't mean much to non Nebraskans, but they had the marathon finish on the 50 yard line of Memorial Stadium (home of the Nebraska Cornhuskers) Scott and I are huge Husker fans, so we were really jazzed when we rounded the corner and saw the stadium. We didn't have anything left to really push it hard, but we ran it out the rest of the way.
When we came out of the tunnel onto the field it was absolutely surreal. They called out my buddy Scott's name on the PA system and we were both on the big screen at the north endzone. There were people screaming and cheering the whole way. Scott and I kept congratulating each other and saying "we did it" over and over. We crossed the finish line holding hands raised in the air. I was so happy that words couldn't begin to express the feeling. I gave scott a huge hug and told him thank you for everything.
When the lady gave me my finishers metal I started to tear up and was downright sobbing. My legs were pretty much on fire at this point so we flopped down in the north endzone. Plus it was really cool to lay down in the Husker Endzone. Scotty and Tony dive in for the winning touchdown.... yaaaaa.. (ok, i was really thinking that)
I looked over to the east and my wife jumped over the fence (to keep spectators out) and ran across the field to give me a kiss. She told me how proud she was of me and I started to tear up again.


get scott a depends to run in.
figure out a better nutrition plan post mile 20. I had only trained to mile 20 in my work up so i never had any problems.
run in the aero position the last 6 miles into the headwind. (might need to bring an aero helmet)

fell down in the endzone and layed there for a few minutes.
then did a 5 minute stretching routine.


combination of the nutrition upsetting my stomach and a nasty headwind the last 6 miles.


I certainly would have liked my stomach to cooperate a little better the last 6 miles, but I couldn't be more pleased with this race. It was awesome to run that race with Scott and I would not have done as well as I did if it weren't for him.
I got a new PR, how can i complain. :)
I do think I'm going to skip spin class tomorrow morning, my legs are a little sore. :)