Fargo Marathon Race #3

Fargo, North Dakota
May 9, 2015
Time:     4:25:55
Overall Place 882/1535

 

Fargo has always been one of my favorite races to run.  It is close to home and it is such a well-organized and supported race.  This is the fifth time we’ve been to Fargo.  I have run the 10K once, the half marathon twice, and the full marathon now twice.  The other reason I enjoy it so much is that we usually have one or two of our girls joining us for the weekend.  We also spend time with some good friends, the Harts.  Not to mention that about 1,000 runners trek down to Fargo for the event as well, so it is a weekend of running and spending time with our running community.

This year we found out that the race organizer had a very special speaker coming in for the speaker series, so we were on a tight schedule to get to Fargo.  She was speaking at four o’clock and we made it down by 3:20.  We were not disappointed. 

 

The speakers name was Deena Kastor who at 42 holds the world masters marathon and half marathon records.  Deena also won a bronze medal at the 2004 Olympic Games which was held in Athens Greece that year.  Another reason it was so special to see her was that Heidi and our daughter Wendy were actually in a race that Deena also ran back in 2013 in Central Park, New Your City.  Deena won that race and I was able to take some really nice pictures of her.  I didn’t actually make the connection in who this was until a couple of years later when we watched a video that she had a roll in called “Spirit of the Marathon”.  I have been following her career for quite some time now.  What was really meaningful for me was what she talked about as one of her main key points.  Her coach, when she went to college on a running scholarship, asked her what her purpose in running was.  She gave answers such as wanting to make the Olympic team and winning nationals and so forth.  This is not what he was getting at.  He wanted to know how running would define her.  The real answer to this question is where running would take her.  What she was getting at is that everyone has a different reason for running.  It became even clearer to me that my running defines me by what I can do with it.  Running is giving me the opportunity to travel to marathons and challenge myself in a way that I can encourage people to join in my cause of supporting Siloam Mission.  That is what running means to me.  I get to talk to a lot of people along the way and if I can touch them in some way about what Siloam Mission is, then I have accomplished what I have set out to do.  There was a lot more that Deena talked about and I could fill several pages with it, but she was very inspiring.

 

As I previously mentioned, I have run Fargo five times now and have never run the same course twice, so you never get bored of seeing the same course.  This year they added a new twist to the race.  This year they started the race in the Fargo Dome which was very unusual.  I have never started a race in a dome before.  I have finished on a track and even in a baseball stadium, but never started in a dome.  It was nice because the temperature was around 32 degrees Fahrenheit (0 C), and we got to warmup inside the warm dome.  When we left the dome at 7:30 in the morning we soon found out how cool it was, but after about a mile or so you warm up and then it stays comfortable for the rest of the race. 
My goal this race was to stay with the 4:30 pace bunny and run at that pace for the whole race.  Well, that lasted about three mile and I went on my own.  The pace bunny’s in the states typically don’t take walk breaks and I like to take a walk break about every two miles. 

It was nice to be back in North America again because I could meet people and talk to them more comfortably.  I met a lady from Seattle and another from Nebraska.  We talked for a few miles and then we parted ways to follow a different pace.
There is much more socialization at the start of the race as opposed to the latter part of the race.  The latter part of the race is all about survival and you just try and hang on till the end.  It was around mile 25 of this race that a Bible verse came to me which doesn’t often happen during running, but this time it did.  I just want to add here that you may be wondering what often goes through our minds when fatigue starts to set in.  So I had this Bible verse which says, I can do all things through Christ Jesus who strengthens me.  No longer did that verse leave my mind when the next thought came into my mind.  The thought was that if I see a kid with a bike I’m stealing the bike and riding a bit.  Well I guess those ideas are a little different and then I kind of had to chuckle until the next thought came in.  We just need to get our minds off the suffering and focus on the finish.  Yes, this suffering is fun.  It just makes the finish all the more rewarding.

 A funny thing happened to me on the day after the race.  I was in the lobby of the hotel and I saw a local newspaper which had some pictures of the race on the cover.  I opened up the newspaper and glanced at a picture that particularly caught my eye.  It was a picture of some runners crossing the Red River on a footbridge.  I thought to myself that this must have been in the half marathon race and I was going to ask the girls if they had crossed this bridge.  I did not remember the bridge.  So I looked a little closer at the picture before I asked them and realized that it was a full shot of me on that bridge.  I laughed.  It just goes to show you sometimes how out of tune you can be with your surroundings when you are so focused on the running.

That is me on the right hand side in yellow

I mentioned before that we really enjoy coming to the Fargo Marathon and this year did not disappoint.  The fan support is great, the organization is top notch and the overall experience is great.  From beginning to end, this race is very good.  It is also very special when the girls can come out to the races and we even have managed to have all five running at one race two years ago, but Fargo we had four.   We are the running family and hopefully will do this for years to come.

 

The finish of the race was also in the Fargo Dome and I came in to the stadium with my victory pose and trotted off to the finish line.  In all honesty I did suffer a lot more this race and I think it’s because I had a hard rest period since the last race.  After we finished running in Vienna, we flew back home and in about 13 hours over 7 time zones and within a couple of days we both were sick.  The recovery was really poor.  The knees also became a little sore as I am still adjusting to the race distance.  Not the overall mileage but the race distance. In training we might run 40 miles a week but the longest we would run is 22 miles.  There is a big difference between 22 and 26.  I am feeling much better now and am really starting to adjust.

I’m really looking forward to the next race in two weeks in Ottawa where I get to spend the weekend with a very special cousin.  It will also be the first race that Heidi will not be with me so I will have to get used to that as well.