35th Marine Corp Marathon - Mission Accomplished!!!

DC Mayor - Adrian Fenty

Sorry for the writing hiatus, but there’ve been big doings of late that pushed my spare time into the negative column and that’s the column where this blog happens to live for now.

The primary time glut has been preparations for the yesterdays 35^th Marine Corp Marathon, which covered 26.2 miles ranging from Arlington national cemetery; two treks across the Potomac River; a jaunt down Hayes point; a lap of the National Mall with an uphill sprint to the finish at the U.S. Marine Corp Memorial (Iwo Jima Monument). Here's the race route map if you're interested.

More than 30 thousand runners signed up for the race and 22 thousand of us finished. My official marathon completion time of 5 hours, 21 minutes was posted this morning at www.marinemarathon.com, which means I averaged nearly a 12-minute mile the entire race.

Despite my lackluster performance, it should be noted for posterity that I crossed the finish line before 39-year old Washington, DC mayor and marathoner Adrian Fenty [see photo insert above], but I still got smoked by a 69-year old speed walker. I know that because the back of his sweat-soaked shirt read, “I’m 69 years old and if you can read this I’m not in last place!”

While my actual race result was ok at best, I was thrilled about how good I felt at the end of the race and that I was able to run the entire course without walking at all – I guess those are the celebratory milestones of a middle-aged man trying to outpace death. 

Regardless, it was a perfect day for the marathon with crisp temperatures and zero humidity. I’m still trying to process everything that occurred and that I experienced – but hope to share more in the coming days.

Suffice to say for now that of the four marathons and handful of half-marathons I’ve completed during the past two years – the Marine Corp Marathon has been my favorite and will be the most memorable.

Mainly because my wife and two girls accompanied me to the race, yet somehow managed to pop-up at miles 10, 16 and 26 to cheer me on!  It’s hard to describe what that means, but I will certainly try in a future post.

More to come including photos....