Marathon

With classes finished for the year, I headed home with a brief stop in Calgary to run a race. In January I looked at my schedule and tried to find marathon that I could run in my time at home and the Calgary marathon fit. The only problem was that it was on the it was run only two days after my exams which meant that I had one day to travel and the the next day I'd run, but I decided that this was the year that I'd do my first marathon. So in January I put the bug in peoples ears to see if I could convince the other runners in the family to join me and they didn't disappoint; Christy and Dad signed up for the half and Trina and I signed up for the full.

The run was going pretty good considering that I trained at sea level and was running the race at elevation (the opposite of what you should do if you have that option). I was a little surprised that I had no joint, stomach, or muscle problem for over the first half of the run. Then at the 32 km mark my right quad tensed up and I had to slow down. That didn't help. By 36 km both my quads were throbbing and could only run 800m of every km they felt like they were going to explode. Those last couple of kilometers were killers.

I finished in just over 4 hours. Not the time I expected and I was a little disappointed that my legs gave out on me but I guess it gives me a time to beat next time.

You probably can't tell this from the picture but the medal that all the marathon runners got for finishing the race also doubles as a belt buckle. Looks like I'm getting a new belt.

The day after the race I'm a little sore and walking is a little uncomfortable. Kate's got me sighed up for another 17km race in the mountains with her firm.