Bass Pro Shops Marathon - RunMarathon

Here are my mile by mile impressions and memories from the race.
· Mile 1: Busted out laughing when someone yelled “More COWBELL!”
· Mile 2: Thought the dude panting next to me was going to be in serious trouble before he finished his 13.1 miles.
· Mile 3: Bye Bye half marathon runners. Enjoy your race; I don’t expect to see you again till the finisher’s tent. WHY HELLO THERE Gremlin and Jennifer.
· Mile 5: “Oh crap the flooded tunnel” was said and heard from several people. Somehow I made it through without getting my shoes wet.
· Mile 7: Here comes the lead runner. Wow, he’s only three miles ahead of me. Five minutes later, wow second place dude has got some ground to catch up on.
· Mile 11: Hmm time to step off the trail while still in the woods to talk to a man about a tree.
· Mile 12: Still going strong, keeping my target pace, and HEY there’s Jennifer and Gremlin again. I restocked the two gels I’d already taken.
· Mile 13.1: “There’s a timing mat, I bet that’s the half split. Hey 2:07, that woulda been a PR. Sweet”
· Mile 15: Jennifer and Gremlin again. I declined to take on any additional gels as I hadn’t used any more yet and I still had plenty of pretzels. This almost turned out to be a mistake.
· Mile 16ish: Ugh so here’s where the concrete starts. Wow, half marathon participants. Guess I was wrong earlier.
· Mile 18: feet starting to hurt and I’m starting to take a bit longer to start running after water breaks.
· Mile 20: I’m out of gels and food. I’m pretty certain that I’m not going to see Jennifer again until I come off of this very isolated out and back at mile 25½.
· Mile 20½: Yeah Jennifer is there. I’m pretty sure at this point I wasn’t smiling. This is also the spot where I last saw this guy. Up to this point we’d been leapfrogging each other all race. He knew all the National Guardsmen that were working the course. If you read his story you’ll find out why.
· Mile 23: My bud Jacob ran the half marathon with his girlfriend. He then turned around, backtracked, found me, and ran the last 3 miles in with me. Thanks buddy, I needed the moral support!
· Mile 25: Oh thank god, asphalt.
· Mile 26: When I saw the finish line, I knew I’d made it. And there were Jennifer and Gremlin waiting for me. YEAH!
· Finish: 4:33:34. Close enough to my 4:30 goal that I’ll call it met. “Holy crap, I just finished a marathon.”

Lessons learned
· Having someone to help you reel in the last couple miles of the race when you’re starting to hit the wall is a huge godsend. Thanks again Jacob!
· My training was very good, and I’ll stick to a similar plan for future marathons. I was still maintaining my target run pace in the second half. However, I did walk more than I’d planned to. Hopefully, I’ll continue to build on my current conditioning and can improve my second half performance.
· When you have someone running race support, load up when they find you. Thanks again Jennifer!
· Concrete really is harder than asphalt.

Things I liked about this race:
· I surprisingly didn’t hate the first unscheduled out and back. It was a very nice paved trail system that meandered through mostly forested areas.
· The people that did come out to watch the race cheered for everyone.
· For the first half of the marathon the aid stations were almost exactly 2 miles apart as advertised.
· Nice long sleeved technical shirt for all participants, customized for the race you were running.
· Post race food was a very nice spread.
· It is relatively close to Little Rock.

Things I didn’t like about this race:
· The course map provided on the web site in a word sucked. Mileage wasn’t marked on it. It wasn’t to scale. If it hadn’t had turn by turn direction on it so you could look at a real map it would have been useless. The blown up 3’x5’ updated rerouted map they had displayed also didn’t have mileage marked on it.
· The out and back on the concrete was just harsh. It was made more difficult by the fact that there were several places that had standing water with algae. If they had sent someone out to remove that with some stiff brooms those wouldn’t have been as big a deal, but they were slick and dangerous.
· There was one split on the trail that wasn’t well marked and didn’t have a volunteer there directing people. I almost got lost, several other people I know almost took the wrong turn there, and apparently the lead runner did get lost there.
· For the second half of the marathon aid stations were not every 2 miles as advertised.
· No first time finishers shirt as advertised
· No 5k split mats as advertised
In summary most of the things I didn’t like really can be summed up by a lack of follow through from the organizers doing what the published material for the race said was going to be done. All in all, there were several things that the race organizers can improve upon for next year. Apparently it will be a completely new route due to state highway construction. If we aren’t doing the Marine Corps Marathon next year, I’m pretty sure I will give this race another shot.