Sun, 04 Jun 2006

Sunburst Races Marathon 2006

Went to South Bend, Indiana, on Friday for the 2006 Sunburst Marathon yesterday morning. This is a smallish marathon with 600 runners, embedded in a half-marathon, 10k and 5k all of which start at the College Football Hall of Fame and end in the Notre Dame football stadium. Early 6:00am start, made worse by the fact that it is one time zone earlier too so I got up at 3:30am 'my time. Ouch.

The race almost didn't start as a hazardous materials spill was announced right at start time. Luckily, that got taken care of and we were off and running at 6:15am. The first ten to twelve miles went pretty well and fast, and I slowed down a little afterwards. I started to pay for the fast first half with some oncoming cramps starting around mile 18. Somehow I managed to suppress the cramps with a combination of walking water stops, gatorade, gu (handed out by the race organisers a four or five water stops -- nice!) and sheer stubbornness and some more walking when needed. I had aimed to beat my Boston qualifying time of 3:20 -- and I did with a chip time of 3:17:48, which is also another PR and a nice improvement over the previous three marathons.

So on to Boston for the one hundred eleventh Boston Marathon next April!

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