Before the start of the race!
With Teddy, George and Jefferson, the Washington Nationals Mascot. I ran a bit of the Marine Corps Marathon with Teddy last year which was pretty amusing....maybe one day I will run a marathon as a character!
The Cherry Blossoms were starting to bloom along the course last year. This year, the marathon is one week earlier, although I expect there will be some Cherry Blossoms in bloom.
After the finish
After the race, Gilligan and Tristan met up with me at the Tidal Basin (Tristan and Gilligan parked at Roosevelt Island and walked along the Mount Vernon Trail to Downtown DC). It was a beautiful day and Gilligan got lots of affection from all the tourists. In fact one lady seemed to do accupressure on his gums...it was pretty funny but he seemed to enjoy it.Today in preparation (cramming?) for Umstead 100, I continued my run-commuting for this week. Although today I sort of cheated, in that my husband dropped me off at work and I was responsible for getting myself home. It was pretty chilly and there was an expectedly strong wind. Luckily at work I have spare running cloths so I was able to add a few layers to enable my run home.
Since I am trying to track my running progress, here are the stats for this week:
Saturday-9 miles of trail hillwork at Harpers Ferry followed by a 4 mile hike (6 hours on feet)
Sunday-7 miles jog
Monday-4 miles jog and 1 hour walk to dinner
Tuesday-16 miles jog to and from work (pretty fast)
Wednesday- 7 mile jog back from work
Thursday-2 mile run (because my knee hurt so I bailed)
Friday-7 mile jog home from work
Thus my statistics include ~50 miles of running and 17 hours of "time on feet".
Tommorow, I will be running the National Marathon. I have not run the marathon since 2006. In 2007 and 2008 I signed up for the Marathon, but then dropped back to the half because it was a week before Umstead 100. This year I have 2 more weeks until Umstead 100. I continue to be a bit anxious and nervous, but am feeling pretty good and strong. Now I just need to keep healthy and injury free for 16 days!
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2 comments:
Tammy:
I ran the Inaugural National Marathon in 2006. I hated it! They ran out of bagels and any kind of food for the 4 hr plus marathoners. The course was so hilly! They since changed the course I heard. And hopefully the race director (Dowling?) learned a thing or two. He was an elite runner which does not necessarily qualify him as a good RD!
Good luck. We are tracking your progress for the 100 miler. Oh Lord! that takes commitment!
Hi there,
I had the same experience you had during the inaugural marathon. In fact my experience might have been worse as my time was just about 5 hours and they ran out of virtually everything.
You are right, elite runners definitely don't make for the best RD's. It seems that on occasion they forget there are many non-elites who are trying their best and just squeek by with 4, 5 or even 6 hours. If a race course is open until a certain time, there should be adequate support for the runners on the course and after the finish line until that time passes.
Tammy
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