Run Run Run

This turned out to be a pretty good run.

My wife had convinced me that it was a good idea to rent a hotel room about 200 meters from the starting line.  Having never done this before and always driving to a race the morning of, I thought why not?  Being able to have a good nights sleep and ample time to get ready in the morning could only help.  Saturday afternoon my wife, girls and I packed up the car and made the drive down to Providence RI.  We made it to the Rhode Island Convention center at 4 pm which gave me an hour to pick up my bib and gear bag.  At first, I couldn't find the expo because there was a HUGE cheerleading competition going on.  Thousands of young girls with sparkly makeup plastered on their faces..... it was like a bad dream.  Little did I know, that these same cheerleaders would be putting a major wrench in my race preparation.  With race bag in hand, we signed in at the front desk of the Omni Hotel and made our way up to the 12th floor.  The room was nice and clean and I was starting to get really excited.  My 10 & 8 yr old ladies were more interested in checking out the indoor pool than anything else.  After a quick recon of the pool area, we decided to find a place to eat...... now that's what I'm talking about!  We probably put a good two miles on our legs before we decided on Joe's American Bar & Grille.  I was looking for pasta, but decided on a burger and sweet potato fries.  My wife ordered the Chicken Piccata and the little ladies both got the "Famous" Joe's baked mac & Cheese.  Knowing that they both wouldn't finish their meals, my carbs were eagerly awaiting me.  My nickname is "Daddy Glutton".

Back to the room and stuffed to the gills, my girls invaded the pool area as my wife and I watched from the pool furniture.  After about an hour or so, we headed back to the room.  I prepared all of my gear and nutrition for the next day and settled into bed at about 10pm.  That's when I heard the first foot falls and giggling of young cheerleaders out in the hallway...... you have to be kidding me?  This continued off and on for the next couple of hours.  My wife actually jumped out of bed at one point as if to go in the hall and mass murder 20 young girls, but I calmed her down and called the front desk.  "Yes hello, I'm on the 12th floor in room 1213 and...... I was cut off right there.  The front desk girl said, "Yes the noise on floor twelve, we have received numerous calls and security is headed up right now."  Thank God...... my wife didn't have to kill anyone and my girls will have their mother around for at least a few more weeks :)  Anyways, the security only marginally helped and the noise finally abated around 1 AM.  Not the restful hotel room I was expecting.

On to the race...... Once again, I would be running this race with Jim, my co-worker and friend.  After eating some oatmeal, a banana an half a bagel, I was feeling good.  I had bought some GU's at the expo and was ready to roll.  Jim and I made our way as close to the start as we could, set our watches and BOOM!!!!  We were off.  Jim took off like he was running a half and I kept with him.  I knew that we would be slowing after the initial excitement of the first mile.  We slowed down to where I wanted to be (pace wise), and ran the next five miles together.  After a while, Jim turned to me and said that he thought that he was working to hard and needed to scale it back a bit.  I separated from Jim, and all of a sudden the 3:15 pacer and his crew pulled up next to me.  Mentally this gave me a little scare.... even though I knew that they were ahead of their 3:15 pace.  I ended up pushing ahead of them in defiance to make myself feel better. In doing so, I felt comfortable and strong.  This was a good early sign, as I never saw them again...... pheww.  The weather was ideal, sunny and in the 50's.  There was quite a bit of gusty wind in spots, especially along the water, but I've run in worse.  No excuses today.  At one point,  I had a mini-battle with another marathoner as he wasn't willing to let me pass him.  This ended up being fine as it took my mind off the pain of the second half of the race.  Eventually he slowed and I passed only to have him catch me a couple of miles later.  We yo-yo'ed like this for a while until the youngster (probably late 20's) fell off pace for good on a section of bike path.  See you later sucka!  The course was sprinkled with great support, including a guy that had a huge sound system in his front driveway blaring the theme music from "Rocky".  This was a nice touch, and kept me positive for the remaining miles.  I could bore everyone with a million more details, but basically I felt in control until mile 23 when the first signs of a wall reared it's head.  Nothing like my two first experiences with the wall, but I noticeably slowed in the last 3 miles.  I found another gear for the final stretch and cheesed it up by pumping my fist and holding my pointer finger in the air.  The hell with it though, I was BQing and I wanted to PARTY!!!!!!

Here are my splits:

3.61 @ lunch

Feels good kid..... ya know?  7:37avg.

5.36 miles @ lunch

Feeling good. 7:12 avg.