Sioux Falls Marathon Race #9

Sioux Falls, South Dakota
Sunday September 13, 2015
Time: 4:33:11
Overall Place: 202/306

 

 

Another weekend, another marathon finished in my quest to run 20 full marathons in 15 months in support of Siloam Mission.  I do have a confession to make and I might as well get it off my chest right now.  Yes, I am running 20 full marathons but I’m afraid I have increased that number just in case some of the planned marathons don’t pan out.  It’s always good to have a plan in place just in case something bad happens such as a race is cancelled or I get stuck in an airport or something else that prevents me from making one of them.  With that in mind I have scheduled 26 full marathons in the fifteen months just to make sure I get to my projected 20.  Okay so it’s out there and yes I am looking forward to every one of them.

This weekend Heidi and I planned to attend the Sioux Falls Marathon in South Dakota.  We had run this race last year and because of its proximity to Winnipeg I decided that this would be a great race to do.  Funny thing is that I had a choice of a few others which were even closer, but we enjoy going to Sioux Falls so we were looking forward to running here again.  This year they made a big change to the race and completely revamped the course.  Yes it’s still 26.2 miles (26.5 if you get lost) but the start and finish were going to be in the same area which is a great plus.

We left on Friday at our usual time which is 12:00 which means Heidi can put in her day of work and I work half a day.  We have it down to a science already.  I drive Heidi to work in the morning.  I go to work and work till 11:00.  I come home make the sandwiches and load the car up and pick her up for 12:00.  This is our routine.  We then drove to Sioux Falls and checked into our hotel at about 8:00.  It was a beautiful drive through North Dakota and South Dakota.  Even though the road is straight, it is not flat once you get into South Dakota.  The really nice thing is that they increased the speed limit in South Dakota to 80 MPH so you can really clip along.

Saturday we were able to spend the whole day in Sioux Falls doing the things we really enjoy doing.  In the morning we got up and went for a little two mile run just to warm up the legs a little.  I will quite often take in a short run the morning before the race.  After this we went to the Expo and picked up our race kits and took a few pictures.  The Expo just happened to be right next door to our hotel.  They have a convention center, arena,  and hotel all on the same grounds.  The stadium where they start and finish the race is right behind the hotel as well so everything is nicely contained to within easy walking distance. 

 

 

 

 

By now it is early afternoon and we headed down to Falls Park which is where the city derives its name from.  It is called the Big Sioux River.  It is a beautiful park in the middle of the downtown area with a lot of photo opportunities. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We also happened to take in a local festivity called Germanfest.  Listened to some nice German music and had a Brat.  It’s not quite Germany but it’s next to the best thing.  After spending some time in the area we headed  over to my next favorite past time, walking the local Mall. The Empire Mall. We also took time to have some prerace food here.  It wasn’t the greatest but it was inexpensive.  Funny thing is that we went back to the Falls to take some night shots and then headed back to the Mall where they have a Panda Express for a little snack before heading to bed.

The next morning we got up at 4:30 after a pretty good sleep.  Okay so I got up and Heidi stayed in bed while I got ready.  As usual I had all of my running wears laid out so there would be no searching in panic for something I couldn’t find. 

 

 You know it’s funny, I’ve been told that I am a creature of habit and I always like to do things the same way at the same time and so on.  I don’t look at it that way.  I like to think of myself as being efficient, nothing wrong with that.  Anyway, I don’t miss anything this way and I’m never in a panic.  My race was starting at 6:30 and Heidi didn’t go off until 7:00.  The temperature was around the 10 Celsius mark so that is a perfect start to the day. 

 

 

We went to the start line so that Heidi could see me off.  It is always nice to have someone see you off.

The biggest unknown for me in the race was how my body was going to react to just having run the week before in Marquette.  I was feeling okay but definitely not at 100% recovered from the week before. The race started at 6:30 right on time and we left in the darkness of the morning.  It is very interesting running with sunglasses in the darkness but soon enough the sun comes up and then there is no problem seeing everything.    The course quickly moved into the residential area and around some parks before we hit the downtown area and Falls Park.  Let me just say that Sioux Falls in not a flat city.  This can be good if you are a resident but not so good if like me you live on a pancake, very flat. Once we got to the Big Sioux River we followed along until we got to the other end of the city and then ran up and down some hills again followed by a very long trail along another small river.  My body was not feeling the greatest for about the first 16 miles and then I don’t know what happened but I started feeling a lot better and picked up the pace a little more.  It was in the last 6 miles that I usually walk a lot more but I continued to walk just at the one mile intervals.  I even started picking off some the slower runners that had succumbed to fatigue.  This is a great feeling. 

 

 

 

The finish of the race was almost a complete lap around the track of the stadium to the wildly cheering crowds, or not.  Heidi was there taking pictures of me coming in, so that was really nice.  My body was quite tired but I guess that was to be expected having just run eight days before.  I really enjoyed the race and got to meet some new people.  It is always neat to talk to other runners and find out how their journey got them to where they are in running full marathons.  I talked to one guy that was from Anchorage Alaska who grew up in Sioux Falls and was running his very first marathon.  His goal was to run a marathon in every state of the U.S...  There is just a lot of camaraderie between runners and a lot of support that goes on that the spectator never sees. 

 

Anyway, it was another fun race and I can’t wait till the next one in Omaha next weekend.  That’s right, I snuck this one in and will be going down with Jennifer and Stephanie.  Unfortunately Wendy couldn’t come.  Heidi will be staying home on this one and it will be just myself and the two girls.

 

 

Speaking of Heidi she ran her 25th half  marathon this weekend and it has been only four years since she started.  What a journey she has come through to get to this point and I am very proud of her for taking the challenge of running and making it a part of her lifestyle.  The funny thing is that Heidi never comes to me and asks which races she wants to do.  She lets me do all of the planning and just wants to know where to show up.  That is a lot of trust.  Heidi has made my journey of running a lot more enjoyable and is a big part of my success in running  to raise support for Siloam Mission.  Without Heidi’s support I could never do this and I just wanted to take this opportunity to recognize her for this.