This was a spontaneous decision. I registered for the race on Thursday and ran it on Saturday. I have been training well for the last few months and I didn't want to "waste" that training without taking a shot at a faster marathon time before the temperatures really start to rise. I noticed that the forecast for the race was great, 40F at the start and 55F at the finish. The course is mostly flat too. This was an ideal opportunity.
The race was held in Olathe, KS and had a Wizard of Oz theme. Never mind that Olathe is nowhere near the western Kansas farmlands. Anyway, it was a fun atmosphere. Lots of runners dressed as Dorothy. They were cute, especially the 6'5" guy with hairy legs. Shelly pointed him out to me but I refused to laugh. I told her that in all the big races there is inevitably some guy dressed in a tutu who then proceeds to whip everyone's sorry tails. Laugh at your peril.
The race conditions were indeed perfect, even if my fitness was suspect. My goal is still 3:10 and at times my training has indicated I'm capable of that. I hadn't exactly focused on this race though and I didn't taper for it, at least not exactly. Last weekend was a cutback week in my training. I had really been pushing hard and after an intense Tue-Wed-Thu where I ran 50 miles I simply was beat that weekend and my body screamed for relief. That weekend I did 10 on Sat and 4 on Sun. So, when the next Thursday came around and I got excited by the ideal race conditions, I looked back and thought, "hmm, a cutback week looks kinda like a taper...". Yeah, what the heck.
I started the race nice and easy. At the first mile marker I was very surprised to see 7:05. A little too fast but not horrible. I eased up just a bit and at the 2nd mile marker I saw 14:50. What? No way did I just slow down to a 7:45 pace. The mile markers were off. Oh yeah, this is the Garmin marathon. For you non-runners that is a little dig at all the runners who use Garmin GPS products and invariably claim their races are measured wrong because their Garmin's told them so. As an electrical engineer with a background in radio communications, I contend they place far too much faith in their electronics.
Though I'm not thrilled with the time I am still glad I ran the race. Flat courses with nice weather are hard to find and I would have always wondered what I could have done.
