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!
/sports/running |
permanent link
