MARATHON

I woke up this morning at the regular hour, 5:00 a.m. and hit the snooze button.  Some say this is too early to get up on Saturday, but I find it perfect.  Best time to do great things. 

I'll spare the travel-log and give you some highlights (in chronological order) that I observed along the way:

• 
  
  I was able to briefly visit with 7 other runners that I knew prior the race.  That was pretty cool.  We would all suffer together.
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  I left my training 'partner' (used loosely as we only ran 2 1/2 times together) immediately after the race started.  I really felt like I was running a conservative pace, but perhaps "tapering" provided that misconception.
• 
  
  Due to my quick start I was subsequently passed by many, many people.  Not until 6 miles had gone by did these people stop disappearing over the horizon.
• 
  
  9 miles is a long distance to run when you have to pee. 
• 
  
  The upper teen miles of a marathon are fuzzy ones.  If you want to cheer for someone, look outside of that block of miles.
• 
  
  Heat is not the marathoner's friend.  At 7:00 it was close to 50 F.  That was the MAX temperature for most of my training.
• 
  
  "THE WALL" is real.  It landed in front of me at mile 19.
• 
  
  Walking remains respectable in a marathon.
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  Sometimes a race should not be considered a race.
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  No one should ever be able to convince you (against your better judgement) that chocolate flavored energy gels are worth trying.
• 
  
  Friendly faces can quickly shatter "The Wall"  Thanks to my training 'partner' for looking past my earlier digression and finishing with me!
• 
  
  Kind "Thank You's" directed to volunteers fade out.  Particularly in that last mile.
• 
  
  Finally, (and most importantly) Dad's should never forget that their 4-year-old daughters might want to run across the finish line with them!  That one's going to sting for a while.