December 08

Time for another Marathon. While others are putting on their winter coat and taking some rest I decided to run some more. Not necessarily the smartest thing to do but I figured why not. It had been a good year for running so why not keep it going.

Taper mode was on and the big drive was coming. 7 hrs 30 mins to El Dorado Hills to hang out with Jeremy and his family. It was a nice day and the drive went surprisingly fast with only one stop for gas. Not much going on for Friday night. Saturday we went to Sacramento in the morning to get my packet. In and out again, no problem! Saturday night was a bit late and I felt like I had the sniffles all week so I wasn't sure how the morning would be. Up at 5:30 am as the start line is about 20 minutes away. I was trying to plan it so that Jeremy could drop me off and I could jog to the start line. It kind of worked, we weren't sure how close we could get with road closures and traffic. I got in about 1.5 mi warm up that took me to the start line about 6:55 for a 7 am start. The good side was I was able to be at the front and not have to worry about running in the masses. The bad part was that I forgot my Hammer Perpetuem which has the protein I need have about 2 hrs. It was 35 at start time. I went with the singlet and gloves. It was warm in the group of people but as we thinned out it was a little chilly. I warmed up nicely and was hoping the fog would burn off and show the sun but it just didn't happen. It stayed cold the whole time and I felt it as my body broke down in the later half of the race. It was 42 at the finish with no sun. Yep, my body broke down, at mile 16 I felt things getting tough. I had been on sub 3 hr pace up to this point. We were a little fast at times but it was down hill at the beginnig so I took what the course gave me. Aid stations were poorly organized and with out my perpetuem I knew this would add to my problems. My lack of long runs and miles was starting to shine through. I tried to stay strong and remember the encouraging words from Katie Caba. She is alway so positive. This got me through the next 4 miles and at mile 20 I was on pace but losing some precious seconds. By 21 I was off sub 3 hr pace and officially hit the WALL. From there on it was a slow steady grind and losing time each mile but still holding on to my PR. As I came through downtown Sacramento I just told myself to hold on and my new goal was 3:04. As I turned the corner for the finish I saw 3:03:45 and I knew I had done it. 3:03:54 for a 6:59 pace and good for 297th place out of 3000.

Not a great race but a good learning lesson. Also got to meet Darin Swanson who is a friend of a friend. We had been exchanging e-mails about our training and planned on running together as we had the same goal of breaking 3 hours. I found him at about mile 4 and we ran together a little but he has some GI problems and dropped off. He still finished with a respectful 3:13:57 and a Boston qualifying time. I also found out that Darin knows and traveled down with Sean Meissner and Jeff Caba from Bend. Sean had a PR at 2:39:06. Jeff also has a PR at 2:36:25.

The rest of December was left for rest and conteplating what I wanted to do in 2009 as well as putting on the winter coat. Training had pretty much stopped.

Logged approx. 60 miles (26 in one day)