day after harrisburg marathon

so the marathon went pretty well actually given my less than usual long run training, though i ran more miles than ever in the past year. and that strength carried me through despite the tightness in the quads late in the run. the cement certainly didn't help and though there were so pretty decent hills, i had done plenty of hill work and ran up all of the hills without any walking at all, though i certainly did slow down some.

statistically i ended up 18th in my age group and 569th out of 769 finishers-today i found that the chip time was faster than i had it on my watch by several seconds. funny but i remember telling gail that i was in pretty decent 17 mile shape and that i would just tough out the rest and in fact, the 18th mile was uphill and that is where i started to slow down some- 33 seconds and then 19 was another 25 seconds s the hill got bigger and then i stayed there for awhile until 24 and 25 when i lost some more seconds, but at least i was able to speed up for the last mile and get it over. they had one of the finishes where you go past the finish line and do a loop back to it and that just seemed long, but i ran in pretty well at least.

thanks again to christina, katherine, nikki and brandi from morgantown, pa who helped me a bunch by letting me run with them for about 16 or 17 miles when they didn't slow down and i did. nice to be young, but they were really nice also. and then the usual chase after people helped me for awhile and the women singing big and rich was pretty entertaining also. as the end approached you find yourself around the same people and there is some mental camaraderie to getting it over as you pass and are passed by the same people as you each suffer at different points.

one funny thing to me was my heart rate and how high it got right away - even the first mile was run at 156 and for me that is about 84%. every mile until 18 was run in the 150's with 18 hitting 163 and 19 at 166-those included some hills also. mile 22 was at 160 as was the last mile at 162. so 166 was the high heart rate that i noticed at least. i did walk about 2.5 mile cooldown to let the lactic acid slow down and that always helps and including the walking at the end the watch said i burned 4244 calories with 25% of that coming from fat. will see what that means later. i spent 4hours, thirty seven minutes and 34 seconds above my 70% heart rate. may not have been the smartest way to go and not what i had intended, but probably started too quickly trying to stay with the the women from morgantown and at least i found out that i could run 4+ hours at that heart rate-something i never do in training.

and so marathon #185 is in the books. a little lingering tightness, but no apparent injuries. some sore toes maybe- i did run in asics 2140's the new shoes just out and i did have it long enough to run some in it before the race. asics are usually just fine out of the box, though even i wouldn't try that unless desperate.

lots of shopping and raking of leaves today and a little bit of chipping and putting and eating and feeling ok. got the bookclub book done and sent in my comments to the UK. miss that bunch.

and so onto golf tomorrow i hope. i was disappointed at how cold i felt today and hoping that is not my future as i noticed that starting to change in oxford also. age or Renaud's? time will tell.

veteran's day tomorrow- thanks to all of you! glad i was able to serve also.
now to pick out the next race.