New Marathon Personal Record

Today 4/18/09, Charlottesville: A "nightmarishly hilly" course. I can now attest firsthand to the nightmare. Especially from mile 21 to 25! Those hills were miles long! Think Scottsview road up from Pony Pasture, and worse - now multiply it to be a mile and more long - over and over!

Still, I met my goal - it was a great weather day, cool at the start - and I felt pretty good early on - everything fell into place. I beat the 10 mile goal of 1:45 by over a minute, then picked up the pace for the rolling hills from 10-14, killed that super hill on 15, then tried not to fall off pace too much to meet the 20 mile goal - made it in 3:21. However, the last 10k after that was at least 75% uphill! Several times I was tempted to walk the hills as many others - but I liked reeling them in! And, once the urge is accepted to give in to the beast, even just a little, then it's too late. So, the last 10k was kind of slow, but I was able to finally break four hours and thirty minutes. One more step on the road to Boston Marathon qualified! I think the chip time will come out to about 4:28:45 or so.

Congrats to all the others from RRRC that ran the race and the half marathon too. This is one tough race course!

Now, you others that still have a spring marathon scheduled (Myron, Kristin, Dave, Others?) - take this advice:
"There is no try, there is only do."

I look forward to your stories too!

Thanks for your interest.

Lee