Not As Young As I Used to Be

So last Sunday while many of you were sleeping in your nice comfortable beds, I was up at 4am getting ready. "Getting ready for what Tom?" Getting ready to do something that only a handful of us in the Young Families Class have done. I ran a half-marathon. :)

I woke up before my alarms (yes plural) and made myself a GREAT smoothie that I like to have before a race. 1 Cup of apple juice, 1 8oz container of vanilla yogurt, 10oz or so of frozen strawberries and a whole banana for those wanting the recipe. Sunday morning I doubled the recipe because of the length I was going to run.

After making enough noise to wake the house up, I got dressed and headed off to the Oklahoma City National Memorial. I paid my $1 to park at the Santa Fe garage (which I paid $5 to park at the night before for a Yard Dawgs game). I gathered my MP3 player and sunglasses then got my running shoes on (and my knee brace too :|). I walked to the starting line area which is on the east side of the Memorial. Its always fun to run this race in any capacity because you get to see News Channel 4 personalities much earlier in the morning than you are used to seeing them. You can tell that they are human this way.

While trying to weave my way to the starting line I bumped into my boy E-Mac, Ellis McCurtain, who was running in his first ever marathon! He was trying to find a bathroom and I told him good luck because it takes 15 minutes to get in one of those before race time. I found the area that I wanted to start in and started stretching. After a great deal of talking from people on the loudspeaker the countdown began to the start of the race. At 6:30am, the starter's gun went off and 2 minutes 33 seconds later I went across the starting line. It is an AMAZING sight seeing so many people running in front of you as you go downhill on Robinson. Even better to see the large number of people behind you. :)

After the 2nd mile it was my turn the visit the bathroom. 5 minutes later I was back on the course. This time I got to weave around walkers. The one thing a runner gets annoyed with is walkers on a running course.

For the rest of the run, I was shooting for running to each water station then walking while I enjoyed water, oranges, and/or bananas. It seemed to be a great plan and worked well for me for most of the day. I started having fun with the course marshals who ensure that motorists do not run us down while we cross intersections. I kept asking them, "Is this the shortcut?" or "Can you give me a ride?". Most of them laughed but there were a couple of older people who scoffed at me because I was asking to leave.

When I came up to Broadway, I knew that I was less than a mile from the finish line. It was time to see what kind of kick I had left. Fortunately for me I did have a kick. I made it to the finish line in 2 hours and 31 minutes. I was quite pleased because I had only trained for 3 weeks for this race! I was shooting for 3 hours. YAY ME!!!

One of the best aspects of this race is the area behind the finish line. I had a couple of Powerades, cookies, yogurts, sausage biscuits and a cheeseburger from Carl's Jr. Good stuff!!! Best of all it was free!!! The 10 minute massage afterwards was great also!

The course has not changed much since I ran the full marathon in 2003. But we had a much better day with less wind than in 2003. While I was waiting for Ellis to finish his marathon, I started thinking, "I could do another marathon. I want to do another marathon." I will keep you advised on this developing situation. Before I forget, Ellis completed the marathon just under 5 hours which was his goal. Good Job E-Mac!!!

It has now been two days since the marathon. My body is still aching. My left knee is hurting. My hips are sore. My back is sore. I walk like John Wayne. All of this from a half of a marathon. Nonetheless I want to give it another try at doing a marathon!