Time: 4:40:22
Overall Place: 285/512
Heidi
and I left late in the afternoon on Thursday April 14 to some pretty cool
conditions with the intent of driving as far as we could into South Dakota
before driving the rest of the way to Olathe.
We drove about 5 ½ hours to a town by the name of Watertown, home of the
Terry Redlin, the famous wildlife artist.
The next day we got up, had breakfast, and drove the rest of the way to
Olathe Kansas. Okay, where is Olathe,
Kansas? Before you bring up the google
maps, I’ll tell you. Olathe is actually
a suburb of Kansas City on the southwest side of Kansas City which happens to
be on the Kansas side of Kansas City. It
is also about a 12 ½ hour drive from Winnipeg straight south down the I 29 highway.
The Garmin Marathon is also themed around the Wizard of Oz so there are runners who will dress the part. They even have a competition for the best dressed runners in costume
We got to Olathe at about 2:30 in the
afternoon and went straight to the Expo which was also the site of the
start/finish line. A new facility at the
Embassy Suites, the Expo was small in size but had lots of nice exhibitors and
we also picked up our race bibs. It
would have been nice to stay here for the night but two reasons why we didn’t. It was already full and it was also quite a
bit more than I was willing to pay. I
like to stay at the start/finish line but this one just didn’t work out that
way, so after attending the Expo we headed to our hotel about 15 minutes away.
We
didn’t leave too much time for ourselves to do any sightseeing but to be honest
there wasn’t much to do in the area. However
we did manage to find a large mall in the area and headed there for our prerace
meal.
One of my favorites because it’s
fast and cheap is the Panda Express, you got it, Chinese food. We walked around just a
little, I believe they call it mall walking, or as I call it wall mocking. We headed back home and laid out all of our
clothes to get ready for the morning, also known as preparing flat ed and flat heidi.
It’s great having Heidi along for the
race. We have everything down to a
routine and I don’t have to think a lot about all of the details because we
work so well as a team.
It
was an early start to the race which was to go off at about 6:45 but they told
everyone to be at the parking lots for the start line before 5:45 so that meant
getting up at around 4:00.
Yes, this is what we look like at about 4:30 in the morning
It’s a good
thing Heidi and I like the morning and we’re both not coffee drinkers so it
makes getting up a lot easier. We got
ourselves ready and checked out of the hotel because we had no plans to come
back to the hotel, which in hind sight was a great decision that Heidi came up
with. We arrived at the parking lot in
plenty of time and found a nice place to park for the race. It was only about a 10 minute walk to the
start line so it was nice and close. The
plan was for Heidi to come back to the car after getting cleaned up and out of
the wet clothes and then she could be at the finish line for when I came across
about two hours later.
We
lined up at the start line with about 600 marathoners and about 2200 half marathoners
all together.
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| You can see from this picture how hilly it is. |
This format is quite
common so it gets everyone off together and works quite well logistically for a
race of this size. The course was billed
as relatively flat and in this case we found out in the first two miles that
this was not the case. It started out
with rolling hills and continued that way for the next 12 miles till the half
and the full marathoners split. Heidi
and I ran together for the first couple of miles but by the second hill it was
time for me to go ahead. The
temperature started out around 8 degrees Celsius with a relatively high
humidity and the high was supposed to go to about 23. These are not my ideal running conditions
because we just don’t train in them. I
was feeling quite comfortable for the first twelve miles taking on fluids every
2 miles. The common mistake which I have
learned and which a lot of people make is that they think they can run at the same
pace in warmer temperatures as they do in the cooler temperature. This is simply not the case unless you want
to cramp up or worse end up being hooked up to an IV near the end of the
race. I took on a lot more fluids than I
normally do and still in the back half of the race I found myself not being
able to get enough fluids into me and having a dry mouth from about mile 13 to
about 18. I was able to recover my fluid
levels, but by then the damage had been done and I was a lot more tired than
normal.
This course is unique in that
the half marathoners run together with the full marathoners until twelve and
then we break off for another 13 miles on a path that winds along a creak and
railway line, so it ends up being a 6.5 mile out and back for the marathoners. It’s nice to see all of the runners in front
and behind often high fiving or just giving words of encouragement. That out and back thirteen miles was really
hard and I found myself walking quite a bit just to keep moving forward. I finally reached mile 25 and just had a
short way to go to get to the finish line which is probably one of the hardest
last miles I have ever done. Thank
goodness it was a little cloudier out at this time because there was no shade
to protect had the sun been out.
I
finally made it to the finish line to a waiting Heidi and posed for my usual
picture just before I cross that line.
There
is one amazing thing about running a marathon and that is once you cross that
finish line and you can finally stop there is definitely a sense of
gratification to be finished but more than that the body just feels a whole lot
better and all that discomfort (pain, fatigue) is gone. I have said before that the more I suffer in
a race the more I enjoy it. I can say
without a doubt that I really had a great time running this marathon.
Not
much time for lollygagging around as I needed to get stretched and changed into
something a little less wet and smelly so we need to get back on the road and
head toward home. Yes, it can get to be
a bit of a grind, having to keep moving from one place to another with little
time to rest but it’s what I need to do to get done what I need to and I wouldn’t
trade it for the world. I mentioned
before that Heidi made a great call not going back to the hotel to get cleaned
up and just staying where we were. There
was only one way to get off the race site and it became very bottled necked
with all of the half marathoners leaving at the same time. She would have never made it back to the
finish in time for me. The parking lot
was at a complete standstill for a very long time. Probably something they need to change.
So
after grabbing some food we jumped in the car and headed back north for our
trip home. We drove about 7 hours back
to Watertown but not before stopping in Sioux Falls for supper at Texas
Roadhouse our favorite restaurant. It
was a great day.
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| Looks like I just ran a marathon |
The
next morning we got up and had breakfast and made the 5 ½ hour trip back to
Winnipeg in time for Heidi to go to a family shower at 2:30. We made it.
Number 24 is in the books with only 6 more to go so it will be a very
busy May and June. I am excited to be
coming to the end of these marathons but I am equally exited to see how much
more support we can bring to Siloam Mission.
