By 1.5 miles I only had like 10 people behind me. This was okay because I was planning to run 4:30/ walk 0:30 for the first 3 miles/ 36 minutes. I felt good resisting the urge to keep up and instead sticking to my plan.

My natural breaks were killing me, I had hit the tree line twice before 3 miles. Saw my wife and handed off my skull cap at 3 miles, then I just started jogging consistently aiming to get a little under 12 minute miles.

For the first hour, or hour and a half, I grabbed lime Gatorade at each stop and water for the rest of the race. I ate 2 packs of sportbeans over the first 8 miles, then ate a whole pack at mile 9 as I started to accelerate.

Everytime I got my average time down, I had to pee again. I skipped the 10 mile water stop, but did take an Oreo someone offered... not a good idea with nothing to drink. But I still ran pretty fast while choking down the cookie. I took it because I was a little hungry.

It felt good passing people, I hadn't even seen many people ahead of me since mile 2, now I was catching and passing a fair number of people. I kept accelerating because I knew it was going to be close beating my goal of 2:30.

I was sprinting to the finish line, feeling good, but almost out of gas, when I saw my 3 year old Zack coming toward me waving and reaching out his hand. I assumed he wanted to give me five, so I slowed enough to touch his hand and sprinted on. Turns out he wanted to run with me... man, I feel like a jerk. If I had known, I would have slowed down, screw the time goal; but it didn't even occur to me in that instant.



Push a little harder all the way through. I conserved energy to make sure I would finish, now that I've done it I can push for faster times.

I guess Depends would chaffe. ;)

I almost fell down taking off my chip. Then a walk around, but Zack still wanted to run with me, so I had to race him back to mommy.


Bladder. Confidence. Leg muscles.


I like the bridges, the view is nice, although I kept thinking about the warning in the race info that the grates would turn our knees or face into hamburger if we fell.