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Friday, March 25, 2011

OC marathon

Signed up for the OC marathon today, figured I'll be in LA that day anyhow, why not. If I would have thought of it earlier I would have preferred to run the Big Sur marathon in Carmel, CA - but it's sold out.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Lower Potomac River Marathon

It was a beautiful weekend with temps that started out in the upper 30's, eventually making its way up to a sunny 60, perfect running weather (for me anyway). 
 
 We arrived at Lexington Park, MD early Saturday morning and spent the forenoon hiking 1-3/4 miles to a small beach that's known for fossils and sharks' teeth; it was a lot of fun and very relaxing. We checked into our hotel, and then picked up my race packet in the afternoon.  After crashing for a couple hours, (we drove straight through on Friday night), I woke up with a splitting headache (not exactly a condition that makes you feel like running 26.2 miles).

The race:  Sunday morning (after a good long nights sleep) I felt much better and ready to go. The race was pretty small with only 200 runners, which makes it the smallest marathon I've run so far (Hatfield-McCoy was around 350 with the half-marathon runners).

The 1st part of the course was pretty nice, it crossed over a bridge onto St. Georges Island which has the Potomac River on the west and the Chesapeake Bay on the left, so it was very scenic. The last half was pretty boring, just a run out and back along a state route with nothing much to look at. The good news was that I didn't have any cramps (I decided it must have been because of having dinner at Chipolte the night before!).

Spiderman won the marathon! A world record was set at this small marathon for the fastest marathon run by someone in a superhero costume, and it was set Michael Wardian, who it turns out is quite a runner, having won quite a number of marathons.

The race started and ended at the Harry Lundeberg School of Seamanship, and after the race we had a nice, hot pasta meal, as well as hot showers awaiting us.  This is one the best perks any marathon can have, especially when you have an 8-9 hour drive ahead of you to get home.  We headed home and were back by 11:00 or so.

Sunday, March 13, 2011