The marathon I last blogged about has come and gone, and so have three months. Yikes! I realize there aren’t many people hanging on the edge of their seats wondering how it turned out, which relieves my guilt about not posting for so long.
We all finished feeling strong and happy in 4:43. This was by far the most enjoyable 26.2 I’ve run, in spite of a rather difficult course and not a lot of crowd support. The Boulder Reservoir offers some beautiful scenery; if you squint your eyes just right and look over the water, you can pretend it’s the ocean. If your thing is running through the peaceful countryside, there’s some of that too. The not-so-great part was running along the dam on the rocks, gravel, and narrowed road. It’s a double loop course, so we rolled through the good and bad parts twice. Literally rolled, as the course was rather hilly.
The last six miles were our fastest, and I was shocked to feel so good at mile 20. For this, I thank my son’s amazing pacing skills. Even though I’ve been running for almost 20 years, I still start races like a spastic puppy. I feel good, so let’s run fast! He’s been running for about five years, and knows that starting slower means finishing faster. We followed his pace, and were rewarded with a strong finish and 4+ hours of truly enjoyable running.
Post-race, we compared training notes. Hubby and I lived by the schedule posted on the front of the refrigerator, held in place by a magnet with the message “Don’t think; just go. We ran when, how far, and how fast the little boxes told us to. My son ran when his work and tennis schedule permitted; usually 2-3 times a week, which included his long run. Yet we all finished together, and truthfully, he was the stronger runner.
Even though the three of us trained very differently for the same race, smart and consistent pacing carried us to the finish line feeling strong and happy. 
RunJanRun 