Little
Rock Marathon
March 2, 2014
3:55:41 5 of 42 in 60-64 401/1749 overall
Where can one run a marathon and have the temperature drop 20 degrees from the start to the finish? Answer: Little Rock 2014. What a wonderful event with a very difficult twist. Yes, it was 55 at the start and when I got in my car to go back to my hotel, it was 36. In between, the marathoners were treated to cloudy skies and light rain and wind; actually pretty good running conditions. I wore my garbage bag for 8 miles, but kept my long sleeve shirt on until mile 23. As the race progressed, whenever I thought it was getting warm, the course would go into the wind and the shirt would stay on. I kept my gloves and cap with ear flaps on the whole race.
I arrived at the race site about 2
hours early so I could park close to the start and avoid traffic. As you can
see in the picture in the Shutterfly slide show, there was a traffic jam for
later arrivals. I checked out the start and finish areas, and then went back to
the car to stay warm and wait. When the race started, I found that the pace
came to me easily and I had to be very careful not to go out too fast. The
first mile was 8:50 and the first 8 miles were in 8:30-8:40 range. I went
through 10 at 1:27:07. With some hills and a major one from 14-16(9:12, 9:29,
8:53) I still kept it around 8:50 with 8:35 and 8:27 coming down the hill and
hitting 20 at 2:56:39. All my miles from 21-26 were 8:51-8:56 except 23 was
9:01 so I felt good about the consistent effort. I felt like I kept a strong
effort going and didn’t have any abnormal leg muscle issues. My last .64 (yes,
that’s what I had on my Garmin) was at 8:30 pace. I find most marathons are
right at 26.4 on my Garmin so I had to keep that last “.2” kick going way
longer than I was expecting. That’s not easyJ But I just kept pushing because I
really wanted to be done and get warm.
When I finished, my fingers were
numb and the rain and wind were starting to get much harder. I got my medal,
the biggest—by far, that there has ever been (think salad plate)-- and sweat
bag and headed for my car. I put on a dry shirt but left my wet shoes on
because I had no feeling in my fingers to untie them. I drove back to the hotel
and got out of my wet clothes and drank coffee and hot tomato soup and finally
thawed out. No, I didn’t take an ice bath!
Unfortunately, those still on the
course after 4 hours (6 hours for those with early start), the rain got really
hard and the threat of thunderstorms caused many to be rerouted for safety
reasons. There was a lot of confusion as to whether the race was cancelled or
not so not a good thing for many who were still on the course. See the news
report for details on what happened: http://www.arkansasmatters.com/story/d/story/kark/23282/KcU16fAEcU-vGmdnfEbfBQ
After a warm
shower and a nap, I had dinner at Texas Roadhouse getting a filet to replenish
the protein and iron. Saturday for breakfast I eaten at the classic Waffle
House that you see all over the south and Midwest, getting my waffle with grits
before going to the expo. The expo was one of the best I’ve been to for a
medium-sized marathon. Very cleverly the marathon had a “super hero” theme and
the nickname “Epic!”. I got to say hello to Bart Yasso again and hear some of
his classic stories. I went to the Olive Garden at 5 for dinner and it was
already packed, but I got to eat at a table in the bar so got done in an hour.
During the
race I did see some super hero costumes. The course also went by at least four
churches which was great. The Methodist church had a “Methodist Mile” section,
the Catholic church had the priest blessing us with holy water, and the black
Baptist church got us rocking and another Baptist church got us rolling. Love
being in the Bible Belt!
Little Rock
is the capital of Arkansas and the capitol building is a classic structure. I
also saw the stadium where the Razorbacks play football and even got to walk on
the field as there was some youth football event going on. I took a quick look
at the outside of the zoo and also saw the famous Central High School which was
at center of the school integration movement in 1957.
Then came
Monday morning: I awoke to the ground covered in snow and the temperature at
19. My car was covered with frozen snow, and the roads were frozen solid with
few cars venturing out. School was cancelled and most could not get to work.
Fortunately, my plane was not scheduled to leave until 4PM so I could wait
until later to leave, but I did not get to do any touring Monday morning as I
had hoped to do. To clear the frozen snow off of my windshields, I turned on
the defroster and used some plastic thingy that really did a great job of
loosening the snow and making it come off in sheets. Being from California, I
had never used one of those scrapper things before and was glad it worked so
well! There were few cars on the roads and highways going to airport which was
about 10 miles away but they were somewhat cleared so I was able to go slow and
get there safely! Add another adventure to the archives. Just so glad the
marathon was on Sunday and not Monday; no way that it could have taken place
with those conditions.
This was Marathon #135;17 states on 2d go round; 8 provinces..
Pictures at:
