The Big One

First Marathon - Marine Corps Marathon 2009

Felt a bit like graduation from the beginner class.  I went into the summer of 2009 with a decent amount of confidence built up from some fairly successful races.  This presented a new challenge though of learning to run longer distances (twice as long as my previous longest race distance of a 1/2 Marathon), and for a lot longer time(upwards of 3 hours).

The race conditions were perfect that day, probably 40s at the start and no hotter than mid 50s by finish.  I kept a mostly even pacing even though being tempted to speed up at certain points.  The crowds and support are great but can give you a false sense of confidence if your not careful.  I realize a lot of non-runners would be thrilled with my time (I was pretty happy at the time), but I also knew I could get faster and stronger over the years if I stuck with it.

Race: Marine Corps Marathon
Date: October 25th, 2009
Finish Time: 3:31:19

A friend of mine was nice enough to spectate and take pictures:

About half-way through in D.C.

Being congratulated by "Miles"
the dog.  Note my medal.

The final hill - almost to the finish!

As much as it hurt the only thing I could think about after finally crossing the finish was to get back out there and train for another one - as soon as safely possible.

Dug up this finisher certificate that I
downloaded after the race just recently.