This was the 2nd race Shannon and I have done together. Sometimes it's more fun to run at someone else's pace and get a different perspective of a race. Since this was her first marathon, I wanted to stay with her every step of the way and encourage her to the finish line. I also wanted to get a picture of her at every mile marker!

We ran completely by Shannon's heart rate. 10 miles Z2, 10 miles Z3, 10K with whatever was left. We started pretty far back in line to avoid all the jostling and stuff. This was much smaller than White Rock, so it wasn't too bad.

I had planned on carrying all of Shannon's nutrition and Laurie's camera in a fannypack she got for Christmas. Unfortunately, the straps wouldn't get tight enough and it was bouncing like crazy. I decided to carry the thing like a football instead. I switched arms every mile so it wasn't too bad. And I never fumbled once.

As expected, the first few miles were fast. We laughed at all the different outfits folks had on. One guy who was a pace leader for the 50K ultra had on a cow suit straight out of the Chick Fil A employee wardrobe. But it didn't come close to the dude who sprint in between us for a pass. He was wearing a tight, cutoff cotton shirt, just short enough to let his gut hang out. It reminded me of the cook on the Wedding Singer who had a "Relax (Don't Do It)" shirt on. I yelled, "Woohoo, Frankie Goes to Hollywood rules!" Everyone around apparently had the same idea I did. Lots of laughs.

Marathons are daunting. Hitting the 1 mile mark and thinking, 25.2 more to go can be discouraging. We decided to break it up by how much nutrition was left rather than distance. Shannon wanted to do a package of Sport Beans every 3 miles. That meant 8 packages over the entire race course. It was much easier to say 2 packages down, 6 to go compared to 6 miles down, 20 to go.

Around mile 4, a bad thing started happening. We both had to pee so bad it wasn't even funny. We had to wait 5 minutes for the portapottie, but let me tell you, it was worth it. Unfortunately, I think that cracked the seal for me. Maybe it's that I was taking a cup of water or Powerade at each aid station, or maybe the Tamiflu I started the day before had adverse affects on the urinary stream, but I had to stop 8 FRAKKING TIMES! And it wasn't just a quick pee and gone each time. It was one of those "I drank the big coke before the 3 hour movie but managed to hold it till the end so I didn't miss anything" pees. OK, enough about pee. That's gross.

Anyway, Shannon ran great. She followed her HRM perfectly the first 10 miles. It would beep twice, we'd stop and walk about a minute, then take off again. We weren't going fast, but we were going steady.

After mile 10 the course exited neighborhoods for a couple of miles into the Botanic Gardens. This is where I was really impressed with Shannon. There was a girl that we were yo-yo-ing with for a few miles, but once Shannon got to play in Z3 after mile 10, I thought we could leave her behind. I didn't want to get too competitive since it was Shannon's race, but I was looking back at the corners to see where she was. We slowed to a walk for a second, and Shannon looked back and said "Well, we finally dropped her." YES! I love my wife.

We caught a couple of guys who were doing a similar race to us - one was pacing the other. We talked to them for a few minutes before we took off again. We heard them talking behind us when we left. "Well, I'll run som more, but not as fast as her." That made Shannon smile.

From then on we started giving nicknames to people ahead of us that we were trying to pick off. Those that I can remember were Ted, Bill (get it?), Mo and Ne (as in Nemo?), Blue jacket guy, and Red shirt dude.

At the halfway mark were meeting runners that were at mile 22 for them (loop portion of the course). We (OK, mainly I) talked about how good it was going to feel to be where they were, that close to the finish. This was probably the only place I remember that had a lot of spectators. That included the best set of spectators - they had a keg, donuts, and Snickers. I think I impressed them when I figured out what they had in the keg based on one sip. Miller. Swill.

The next few miles on the loop were draining. Shannon was getting tired and was starting to hurt. She hit the wall at mile 18. The last month or so of not getting to train finally showed up. I was proud of how she kept going though. No quit in this girl. We passed a house that was playing MC Hammer super loud. Maybe that helped her, maybe it didn't. But she perked up for a couple of miles.

We made it back to the beer aid station. By then there was only one guy left, but he was still very encouraging to us. But that was about all there was out there other than the aid stations. Finally got my obligatory Seinfeld reference in at mile 22's aid station. They had PB Pretzels. Of course, I said, "These pretzels are making me THIRSTY!" One of the volunteers yelled back, "These pretzels are making ME thirsty." Love it.

The next few miles along the river we were into the "Run X cones, walk Y cones" movement. This pretty much continued the rest of the race. At mile 25, there was a very unkind uphill. It sucked.

We finally got into downtown and saw mile 26. Then Shannon started to feel it. The last 385 yards were pure joy. We heard the BT cheering crew as soon as we turned the last corner. Right at the finish I grabbed her hand and held it high. My wife was now a Marathoner!

Something besides that fanny pack. Carrying the equivalent of a football was annoying.

Not have to pee every 3 miles?

Walked around a bit to get finisher's shirts, then to the van to go eat Freebirds!


A decent small race. Course was hillier than I would have liked, and spectators were sparse. Otherwise, there was plenty of support and traffic control.