Rich's Running Blog

What a thrilling day for me to break 3 hours in a marathon, 5th time is the charm.  I am very excited to finally pull it off.  I had several hurdles on the day.  First early in the week my shoes that are barely 2 weeks old the rubber flapped loose and I took them back to the store I got them.  The store attended glued the rubber back on and assured me they would be fine or he would change them for new ones.  I told him I was nervous because of the Marathon, but he contended there would be no problem.  After 4 miles I could feel the rubber flapping and I didn't know what to do, I decided to just ignore the problem and I finally forgot about it.  Then at about mile 2 I was running through a neighborhood and I went the wrong way!! There were no other runners in sight ahead of me and I didn't notice any markings ahead of me, someone in a truck came by me and told me to turn around, I ran back and added about a 1/4  of a mile.  I was really discouraged for about a mile and that was my slowest mile of the race.   I also was ahead of the runner behind me by at least 100 yards when I made that mistake, when I came back he had me by more than that.  I hung on though to pull back mentally and finish pretty strong, I think I would have been close to 2:55 if I could have avoided that problem though.  I feel like 2:55 is a realistic goal for St George.  Overall what a great day, and talk about perfect weather for running.  Also I was impressed with the aid stations and the race overall.  I think I will be back in 2009.