Erie, PA Sep. 7, 2025
5:19:02 – 1041/1103 Overall – 3/4 in 75-79
Jodi and I flew into Cleveland on
Friday and spent the night there. Saturday morning we took the tour of the
Cleveland Indians’ ballpark. (Our guide, a Cleveland area baseball coach and
teacher said he’s never had anyone on the tour who liked the name they use
now.) After the tour, we also saw the basketball arena across the street, and
drove a couple miles to see their football stadium. Our guide had told us about
the original field that Cleveland played on in the early 1900s when they were
named the Naps. Cy Young pitched with them back then. The field is in great
shape and used now by local baseball teams.
We then
drove to Erie to pick up my race packet and check-out the logistics which were
a bit complicated since the race is on a peninsula that juts out into Lake Erie
and is closed to traffic during the race. Sunday morning we had to walk a mile
from the parking lot to get to the race start/finish area.
When we got up race morning, we saw
that it has rained during the night, but had stopped. So the air was fresh and
the temperature was 55 and the skies were partly cloudy with lots of shade from
gorgeous trees along most of the course. Jodi was able to get in a 9 mile run
along an adjoining path and ended up with about 14 miles being a great Sherpa
and spectator. Since the race was 2 loops, she was able to meet me a couple of
times and see me finish.
During the
race, I mostly ran 3:30 and walked :30-45 seconds. I ran pretty much alone
until about mile 17 when I noted lady with a 50 state hat. We were able to pace
together the rest of the way and entertain each other with stories which helped
a lot with the tediousness of running 5+ hours. She started running in
her 60s and is now 75 and has run marathons in 30 states so far, on all the
continents and run the 6 majors. She is Vietnamese and escaped from Saigon just
as it falling to the Viet Cong. It was quite interesting to hear her full story
and realize that she is the living history that I used to teach about in my
Vietnam War unit for my students at Hoover and Reedley.
My stomach was a bit upset, and Jodi volunteered to go
back up the hill to the parking lot to get the car to pick up me and my new
friend who needed a ride to her hotel. While we waited, we found out that we
had each placed in our age groups and they gave us our plaques.
Monday, we drove to Canton, OH to visit the NFL Hall
of Fame. We spent 4-5 hours there and then drove back to Cleveland where we
stayed at the same hotel at which we had stayed on Friday. Since our plane
didn’t leave until 5PM, we had time to go visit the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame.
We got right in when the doors opened at 10 and got to see most everything we
wanted to see during the 4 hours we had to do so.
This
was Marathon #190; 46 states+DC on 2nd go-round; All 10 Canadian provinces.
Next marathon planned: Hartford, CT Oct. 12, 2025
There are 2 sets of pictures available to see on Shutterfly:
Ballpark and Race: https://photos.shutterfly.com/album/1842983048610350
NFL and RNR Hall of Fames: https://link.shutterfly.com/VFv0w6V5zWb
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