George Washington Birthday Marathon: 5 hours 19 minutes

With my friend Amanda (same time, same place, different year!). We have run this race 3 times in a row together and I expect we will continue this ritual for many years to come!

My friends Frank (a RD for a North Carolina Marathon), Caroline (a lady from Virginia Happy Trails who had just run Holiday Lake 50 km), Tammy B (a friend from Reston Runners who I knew from JFK 50 miler this past fall) and Homer (Tammy's friend)

With Tammy who I ran most of the race with (the only times we separated is when I scurried on ahead to use the porta potty...which I used each lap--I wish they had real running water but on a positive note, they had hand sanitizer)

After the finish walking the course backwards to cheer on my friends including: Peter W., Jean E., Frank, Carolyn and others.

With Gilligan in 2007 (this year it was bitterly cold). Gilligan ran about 400 meters of the course (his limit for a marathon distance race). Sadly this year Gilligan was not able to run me in to the finish line because his driver, Tristan, was in Birmingham visiting his family. I think Gilligan was just as happy because he is not a fan of exercise (I think his motto is: Exercise, fun to watch, but not to do!)

Today I ran the George Washington Birthday Marathon. This was my 4th time running this marathon. It is a very small marathon, but now that I have run it a few times I know many of my fellow runners as well as volunteers.

This marathon is located just about 30 miles from my house and is a short 40 minute drive. That combined with my new reduced time in getting ready (thanks to Drymax Socks which now make it so I "Glide" where I have seams, get into my running cloths, slip on a pair of socks-today which were my trail running Drymax socks, put on my sneakers and I am ready for a marathon all within about 10 minutes!). And of course the start of 10:30 a.m. for "normal" starters and 9:30 a.m. start for the early starters made for a very pleasant morning including sleeping in then having some quality snuggling time with Sagwa, our middle cat.

At race check-in at the Greenbelt Athletic Center, I saw about 20 friends from Reston Runners, Virginia Happy Trials, Marathon Maniacs, the 50 States Club and Montgomery County Road Runners. At about 9:15 we all meandered to the start line. During this walk I was able to briefly catch up with my friend Amanda P., Jean E. and a bunch of other runners. During most of the race I ended up running with my friend Tammy B. from the Reston Runners who also ran JFK 50 miler this past fall. I learned she had run Vegas, New Orleans and this marathon...so she is kind of stalking me:-) She was really good company and recently completed 12 marathons in 12 months. She definitely plans to run JFK50 again in 2009 and perhaps will do some other ultra's.

Tammy B. was really good company and we started pretty much at the same pace and seemed to be running about the same pace throughout the race. We chatted about alot of subjects which made the 26 miles fly by. Hopefully she will be creating a blog, which I can link to in the next several days!

During the race (while starting the hour early) I was lucky enough to see my friends Amanda P. (who has run many Maryland marathons with me and now has a 16 month old son), Jean E. (who has run the 24 hour race with me as well as many other events), Will and Charlie (my buddies from the B&A trail marathon who I will see in just about 2 weeks), many Reston Runners including Mary K, Ellen M., Leslie, Peter W. and others and Virginia Happy Trail Runners. During the race I saw my friend Jim who had run the VT100 miler in 2008 as well as many others.

This race is a reunion of sorts for me which is really nice. And this year the temperature was about 40 degree's so not too bad. A few years ago it did not break out of the teens and the wind chill was in the single digits, BRR ;-( Another year there was a snowsquall, which for me occurred as I was going up the massive hill by mile 25 (which in retrospect was nice because I did not realize how awful the hill was!). And my first year there was a bit of ice on the course. The weather is always a wild card for this marthon but it is a really well run marathon with lots of nice people volunteering, spectating and running it.

I will write more tommorrow and post some pictures. I now have to get off google and get onto southwest so I can e-check my husband in for his flight home tommorrow!