I left work at noon on Friday and made what was supposed to be a 4 hour drive with my friends, married couple RH & KH. RH was running the full and KH was running the half. The trip to the race must have been an omen as it took us 5.5 hours and we sat in standstill traffic twice. Once b/c Obama was in Toldeo and they closed the high way and the second time b/c people were gawking at a horrendous wreck on the opposite side of the highway. We got to South Bend at like 5:30 and headed to expo. The expo was very small, about 5 booths, but it was super easy to find out race number and get our packet. I also really liked the shirts b/c they had women specific tech shirts with a nice clean design on white. I am sick of stupid shirts that are made to fit a man, so I was pleased to get a shirt that I will like to wear. From there we rushed to our hotel, had about 20 mins of downtime and then made the 20 min walk to where we were meeting our other 3 friends who came to town for dinner. The town of South Bend is super cute and I wish I had more time to explore. Dinner was okay, we ate at an upscale Italian place called Ciao's. I am not a big Italian fan anyway and there wasn't much on the menu that looked safe for my belly. So, I had a piece of tuna steak that was really good and some rice and veggies that was way too butter soaked for my taste. My crew walked back to the hotel and we got there around 9:30. I laid all my stuff out and was in bed by 10 for my 4:45 wake up call!

On Saturday the race started at 6am! That's a little early for my taste, but thank goodness it did. This was the first marathon I traveled too that I didn't get to stay in a house, so I learned a few important tips about mary traveling. I wasn't prepared properly for breakfast. I brought oatmeal packets, but had no where to get hot water and no spoon! So, I ate my oatmeal using nasty hotel room coffee machine water and used the end of my toothbrush to shovel it into my mouth! Our sub par hotel had no continental breakfast, but they did sit out fruit and water.

We walked up the street at 5:40 and met our 3 friends who stayed at another hotel. J and B were running the full too, the other friend was just watching her boyfriend. At this race the mary and half start at different times and run different courses, so it was a relative ghost town since only about 1000 people were running the full. We got in line at the start w/o issue and used the portapotties without a line. It was very nice. The race start at 6 was an anti climatic cap gun and we were off. I was in no way shape or form in top marathon shape. So, my plan going in was to run an easy race, stay around a 10 min pace and just have fun. Our friend B was running his first marathon even and hoping for a 4:30 and honestly I just would have been happy with that. RH and I stayed together at the beginning as the course wound through nice, quaint neighborhoods and a park along the water. The first half went perfectly fine. I felt good, I could have gone a little faster, but we were trotting along and talking to everyone along way. We crossed the half at 2:12.

At the start the temperature was 69 degrees. As we ran I felt a little more humid and sweaty than I would have liked, I started to worry. I was sweating very salty. We had such a cold and wet spring that I had only really ran in the heat once or twice. At 13 my shoulders started to cramp. I ate my GUs, I walked through the water stops at 13 and 14. By the time we got to 17 I knew things were not going to get better. I started to take walk breaks. Finally I convinced RH to go on without me. I met up with a nice gal at 18 and we walked together for awhile. We started helping each other along. Talking each other into running a few mins and then taking a walk break. We ran/walked our way back to mile 20. At this the race clock had been running for about 4:10. We started to do the math and decided that we might as well just power walk the rest. Every time I started to run I would get really nauseous and light headed. when I was running it was about an 11 min pace. We were able to walk at about a 14 min pace. Everyone was walking and I mean everyone. From mile 17-20 it's an out and back in a very nice park along the river. A lot of us ran into the park, but were walking on our way out. Once you leave the park at mile 20, you go back into town and run on the asphalt. There were sporadic little groups of people walking. At the mile 20 water stop the volunteer told me they had "red flagged" the race b/c of the heat and that we could take a shuttle back. My new friend and I decided to finish it out, I wanted an official time for the 50 state club! We picked up another women as we walked in and caught up with my friends J & B who were also now walking for the most part. The next 6 miles were a blur, but my little group of ladies busied ourselves talking and pushing each other on, we all would have love to quit.

At mile 25 a guy with a walky talky told me the race was closed, the race director had black flagged it. He said that we could go on at our own discretion. The Notre Dame campus was in eye shot at this point, so of course we had come that far we were going to finish! You finish on the Notre Dame football field and get to run through the tunnel the players do and onto the field. I started running again once i hit mile 26 and ran onto the field. Only to be met by everyone packing it up. It was 5:15 at this point, I wasn't directed to the finish, but over to get water. But they did call my name as I ran onto the field. I did end up backtracking and going through the finish, but the clock was off. Turns out they turned it off at 5:08 and rolled up the mat! I don't disagree with the director's choice to close the race, it was 95 degrees out and way hotter on the asphalt, but I am very peeved that they didn't let those of us within a few minutes get a chance to officially finish. It was quite a day. There were so many sad people, one women was crying b/c she had just done her 3rd marathon in 90 days and was trying to get into the marathon maniacs club. W/o official results, she might not be able to. It was not the end to my race that I was hoping for. But I know it's not the end of the world. Another state done, another marathon and this one will hopefully be the worse race I ever run.

This past weekend I took a little 4 hour drive to Huntington West Virginia to do their marathon. My co-worker Wendy who is from WV asked if I wanted to tag along with her for the weekend. She had actually ran the race before and graduated from Marshall University. Wendy is on the 50 state quest as well, but she already had WV, so she was just there to run it for fun and help me with my pace. I was happy to have her as she is very good talker and we chatted happily for the first 22 miles and once the pain really set in, she knew I needed time alone in my head!

Overall I would give this race a C+.

A few pros:
· It’s in Nov, so I could train after summer’s hottest days were done,
· Swag – you got an awesome zip up fleece as your swag
· Small crowd- only 500 people ran the marathon (1000 in the half) so the start wasn’t too congested
· Course details - the course was very well marked and had enough porta potties and water stops.

On to the cons:

· Course - well there really isn’t much to see. The Marshall campus is nice, and there is a pretty park you run through twice, but aside from that you are just running up and down rundown city streets.
· Street Crowd - There is no crowd support to speak of and some of the areas were just downright dirty and desolate. Huntington is a small town that has seen better days. I knew this going into the race though and just wanted to do it to mark WV off my states list.

The race started at 7 am and boy was it cold. I wore some thin pants, a tank top with sports bra built in, a zip up pullover and my favorite vest along with throw away gloves and an ear band. I was dressed perfectly for the start, but by mile 18 was really wanting to ditch my vest, but it’s my fav and I wasn’t going to throw it away. You start in the street that is part of the campus and then you work your way past fast food restaurant and other city scenes. There was no timing mat at the start, so everyone had the same start time. However, Wendy and I were not very far back, we were probably 45 seconds back in the pack. It was such a small race it was humorous to see how close together the pace signs were. The crowd broke up by mile 1 and I was able to keep my pace below a 9 min mile for the first 3 miles. We hit the 5K mark a hair under 27 mins and I made the conscious decision to pull back a little. My game plan was to keep my pace consistently below 9:15 until mile 20 b/c I knew at 20 I would slow down and I was hoping for an overall pace of 9:30. I was almost able to do that, my overall pace was 9:33. I don’t think I had any miles that went over the 10 min pace. Because it was such a small race, we were able to chat with various people and we ran around the same faces the whole race. As I said there was a nice break from the streets when you ran through a park on a dirt/crushed limestone trail, but that only amounted to about 4 miles overall. You also ran along the water for about a half mile twice. Other than that it was just dirty house and at one point an old amusement park! I had to stop for the port potty at mile 10, but just to pee! I made it through this whole race without stomach issues and I cannot tell you what a big thing that is for me. Usually I am wrecked by stomach pangs and portapotty stops. After that stop I was good the whole race. I ate some sports beans, some shot blocks, a clif kids bar and one GU and it was the perfect combo. I will be repeating it at Delaware in a few weeks. I felt pretty good up until mile 16, then the doubt and pain started creeping in. I’ve been having some issues with my feet and my right leg and they really started to hurt at this point. I was just chugging along praying for mile 20. At mile 20 I always get a sense of relief, this is almost over, even though I really have like another hour to go! But something about mile 20 makes me very happy. By 20 I was hurting, but not too bad, things didn’t really get desperate for me until mile 23. Every step after 23 really hurt and it was a mental game to just get it done. I knew I could do a 5K, I knew I could push and not let my pace drop too badly. I really wish I could have dug a little deeper at the end, but I was done. You finish in the Marshall stadium and that was great, except that you have to run down a steep short hill to get onto the field and it hurt after 26 miles. Wendy and I both pretty much stopped and walked down it. Official results aren’t up yet, but my clock time was 4:11:31 and my Garmin was 4:10:55. So, somewhere in between there.

Up next is Rehoboth Beach in Delaware. I am looking forward to it and really think I can run under a 4:10 for it, as long as it doesn’t get too windy.