Museum of Aviation Marathon, Robins AFB, GA (Jan. 17th, 2009)

#111 Museum of Aviation Marathon, Robins AFB, GA Temps 20 to 35F. Finish Time 3:34:01

I had planned to try again for Boston by running Miami in 2 weeks if the weather is cool but Heather mentioned to me that the weather was going to be cold in the coming weekend. It occurred to me on Wed to look for a marathon to run in the coming weekend. The Museum of Aviation in Robins AFB just south on Macon, GA had a marathon on Saturday. It seemed relatively flat. On Thursday, I decided to sign up for the Sat. marathon after seeing the 10-day forecast for Miami (60F-74F). I went to Track Shack to pick up a new pair of shoes. They were sold out but the new 2009 model was due in soon. Instead I ordered the new model online and got it Friday. My legs were still sore from a calf workout on Monday and "jumping" squat movements from spinning Monday & Wednesday. I was hoping to recover in time for the marathon.

Sat morning.
Temps were forecasted to be 18 to 25 degrees. I overdressed - wearing shorts, knit cap, and longsleeves. I should have worn a short-sleeved tech shirt. It warmed up to 35F. With only a 3 day taper, my pace was 5 seconds slower than at Disney -- the course was rolling hills with 2 hard hills and 2 moderate hills. I lost about 40 seconds from getting lost; I could see no one ahead of me. Still, I am pleased at the consistency in the past 3 weekends after running slow all of 2008. I took it easy till mile 26 when I ran hard to pass anyone that could be in my age group. I got 4th in my age group - 3rd place was the only person that passed me in the 2nd half. Also, I wanted to show Heather that heat was the cause of my slowdown at Disney. I hardly lost any speed in the last six miles of this cold weather marathon.

The Museum had some neat planes: a B52, U2 and SR71. The spy planes have been decomissioned and replaced by satellites.

Sun morning.
The next day, I came across some friends who told me the Boston Qualifying time allowed 59 extra seconds. I did not have to break 3:30:00 but could have run a 3:30:59. I knew this to be true for my previous qualifying time of 3:20:59 qualifying but never reasoned it to 3:30:59. Had I not made this mental error, I am could have easily qualifed at Disney last week by running 39 secs faster. I felt frustrated, Hopefully, Tallahasee (in 2 weeks) will have cool weather and I can run 1.5 secs faster per mile. I didn't get any blisters in either marathon by using Drymax's Maximum Protection socks. I thought about using their wamer trail socks but stuck with what works.

Disney Marathon, (Jan. 11th 2009)

#110 Disney Marathon. Temps 60 to 69 sunny. Finish time 3:31:38

Friday morning:
Heather and I met Jeff, a high school friend, for breakfast before packet pickup. We naturally, talked mostly about running. He was in town as a member of the Clif Bar Pace Team. He autographed my copy of his book "My First 100 Marathons". We swapped Drymax and Clif Bar samples.

Sunday morning:
There was little room to warm up at the start. I got in 15 minutes and felt good. I saw Heather stopped at mile 13. She dropped due to an injury. (She also didn't want me passing her:) My goal was to run every mile at 8:00 or under. I have not raced or trained more than 3 miles at a 8 min pace since Oct 2007 (except for the 1/2 marathon the week before). So I was pleased I somehow remembered how to hold pace. As the temps went up, my pace slowed. I took it easy. I missed the Boston Qualifier time by one minute 38 seconds.

We had plans to meet up again with Jeff after the race. He introduced us to other members of the Clif-Bar Team. Darris and Star, from the pace team, expressed an interest in crewing for me if I got selected to run Badwater this year. The team had a number of accomplished and extreme runners.

There were no blisters on this run; the Drymax socks worked again.