Day started out rough - bad headache and nose stuffed up. Nothing a little Advil and the Neti-Pot won't solve. I had a banana, toast, and coffee at home and headed to pick up Jon. At the Dizzy 50k, I had a Hardees sausage biscuit 5 minutes before the start of the race. As unconventional and seemingly stupid as that is, I decided to have more of a good thing and bought two sausage biscuits on my way to pick up Jon. A little protein in the stomach helps things in my opinion. As far as the grease, I don't know but it sure helped my mood. We got to the race a little behind shedule (about 55 minutes before the race) but that was plenty of time. Jon let me in on the secret Fleet Feet bathroom in the holiday inn. Nice way to bypass the lines right before the race. It was a chilly day 30F , sunny with light winds. I couldn't resist just wearing a short and singlet though. Being chilled at the start gets me on edge which is good to get me going. You don't want to be too comfortable at the start line. I did wear gloves, hat, and my poor man's arm sleeves (white tube stocks with toes cut off). I can't see myself ever spending $40 for those fancy moeben sleeves just to keep my elbows warm. My sausage biscuit gave me a little heartburn during my warmup but it settled back down. I almost missed the start like I did at Dizzy. 5 minutes before the start while, I saw Jon and somehow that triggered a thought that I wasn't wearing my waist pack which had all my Gu's in it. As the race directors were thanking everyone for coming, I sprinted from the start line back to my car and got it. and returned the startline in the middle of the national anthem. Whew! Nice warmup. The start went smoothly. The week before I had chided Jon that if he started running 6:30's I was going to let him go as that was crazy and too fast. Ironically it was me who started too fast, as I came through mile 1 at 6:30. I'm not one to follow my own advice. Jon yelled at me from a pack 10 yards which brought me to my senses. I let Eric Charette and Donald Bowman go and eased up slightly. At mile 2, my left shoe got untied ("Blow out!" as Brett Addington pointed out) and Jon along with a sizable pack (8-10 runners strong) past me as I knelt to fix it. I caught back up and tucked in but my left upper hamstring tightened. I tried to ingore the pain and eventually the pain gave up and took a vacation. This was the first of two great packs we ran with. It makes things so much easier. This one was going a little too fast which had Jon and I shaking our heads at each split- 6:35-6:37ish. We felt good though and hung on. The eventual 2nd and 3rd place women were with us (both local fleet feet runners.). Jon and I let them go at about mile 6 or 7 and we eased up to around 6:40 pace. I stayed true to my Gu schedule. 1st at 20 minutes then another each 30 after that. A little water or powerade at each aid station. Jon and I hung together on Bailey Cove road and broke wind foreach other. We both felt good. My standard question for him was "how many gears do you have left"? Two was the common answer which is good for not quite half way through a marathon. We caught up to the eventual 5th place woman and ran with her for awhile. Our old pack was about a minute ahead when we went through the half marathon at 1:27:45. We had a slow mile (6:50 or so) and another pack caught up. they were 8+ strong as well. We slipped in with them and hung on. This was a great group- nice and steady. A couple times they got a little gap on me and Jon yelled at me to catch back up. I was able to. There was no way I would be running this pace if I was on my own. The pack carried me through the "tough middle" of the marathon - 13 to 21 miles. At the crest of the final big hill, I broke ahead of the pack on the down hill and never looked back or get passed from that point on. Jon stayed with me on Whitesburg through the tunnel and then dropped back for a awesome 2:59 finish of his own. I just put my head down, focused, and pushed. I didn't have any gears left but I stayed strong. All the later miles were 6:40 or better. I caught sight of Eric Charette coming up to the 25 mile mark. He's a 34 minute 10K and sub 17 5K runner whose been doing some great training over the past year. He was my carrot to keep pushing. I caught him with a 1/3 mile to go (right by the hospital). Eric has a great kick and was able to pass me back in the finish stretch and get me by 5 seconds. He had a huge PR (over 10 minutes) as did I (almost 4). When I broke 3 hrs before, my thought was "that is too hard. I'm never going to run a marathon fast like that again." I shouldn't listen to myself. This was felt so much better. My first negative split marathon (in 18 tries). I was within 30 seconds of my 1/2 marathon PR on the 2nd half of this one! I really had no expectation of running this fast- the miracle of lowered expectations (no pressure) i guess.
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