OKC Marathon, 4-26-09

The night before the marathon, it was raining quite abit. Tornado warnings were being issued. I thought..."am I gonna run in the rain again tomorrow?" Just 2 weeks before, I had ran McNaughton in rain and muddy conditions. But little did I know that by next day, the rain would be gone. However, I never thought that it would be windy throughout the day...gusts up to 40 mph.
I was part of the Fleet Feet pace team. I was to lead the 4:45 marathon goal finishers. The day started out great. Temps. were nice and cool...a little bit on the humid side due to rains throughout the night. Gun went off at approximately 6:30am. For the first half of the marathon, the wind was behind us. At start, the wind wasn't blowing that much. But as the day progress, the wind picked some speed. It was getting very humid too.
At the half-way point, my group was still on pace. It was now noticeable that the wind was going to be a factor on the way back. As we approached mile 14, we now had a strong headwind. My legs were beginning to feel the effects. I struggled to reach mile 18. But I was still on pace for 4:45 finish. As a pace leader, I had to maintain 10:53/mile throughout the entire 26.2 miles.
I reached mile 20, I was really struggling. My legs were starting to cramp up. It was a good thing that another pacer was with me. He continued on with the pace, while I tried to regain my composer. I walked for about 1/2 mile, drank water, powerade, ate some preztels, took in endurolites. I think I was not completely recovered from my hard 80 miles at McNaughton. I walked abit, and run slowly for abit...did that for about 2 or 3 miles. Last 3 miles were still pretty hard, but I managed to get-r-dunn. I rolled in at 4:51 chiptime (4:56 guntime).
Man...was I hungry at finish. I downed 3 Carl's jr. burgers....yummmy. I wish I had a coke or beer with that. It really sucks that I had to drink water or Powerade at finish. I was drinking that for the last 26 miles...dang it!
Anyway, it was a good run. Now on with my training for BW. Yeah!!!
Congrats to everyone! It was not an easy day to run.