New Marathon PR

Just a short race report- overall the Baton Rough Beach Marathon was a great success. I really didn't have too many expectations for the day except wanting to enjoy myself to the fullest and have a good trip with my running pal Ginny. Just past half way I realized I was doing better than expected and went for it. I ran my butt off the last 5 miles and was completely toast as I crossed the finish line. The picture you see of me shows a smile of satisfaction mixed with a grimace of pain!


Thanks for the picture Ginny!

This was the most beautiful course I have ever seen and was pretty flat but it made you work really hard. The field was small only 360 in the full marathon (over 600 in the half), well marked with fabulous volunteers. The weather was a touch on the warm side but a stiff breeze kept the worst of it at bay, it got to a high of 72 and that could have been miserable.

My chip time was 4:44:15 that is a PR for me of about 4 minutes and 30 seconds!

Today I feel a bit achy but nothing out of the ordinary. I'll get a walk in a bit later and do some stretching. Tomorrow I will do a slow and easy 3 miler.

I really want to thank Ginny (she got second place in her AG!). I think that part of having a great marathon experience is being able to have good traveling partners. Being relaxed and having a no-stress environment is really important, some people are just easy to travel with and that makes the whole experience so much more enjoyable!

Now I have to get right back on the horse, so-to-speak. I have a 50 miler coming up in March and have a lot of trail work to do. I'll have an easy week ahead and I will make the transition to more trail work the week after. The holidays are always hard on training but after the new year I'll be back with the bigger mileage and longer training runs. I love trail running but really only have two areas, with limited trails, to do my training on so we'll see after March how much I still love the trails. The biggest challenge coming up with be mental as well as getting my nutrition dialed in. I have lots of work to do but I am excited and motivated for the next part of my running journey!