Grandma's Marathon

About 3 weeks ago I was contemplating the layout of the rest of the season. With NVGP being over, and not a whole lot of races that I will be able to get to in July, I figured I might as well try a marathon to see what all the fuss was about.

Saturday I did just that. It was the 33rd annual Grandma's Marathon here in Duluth. It has alway been one of my favorite weekends to be here with all the people that come to do it. Word on the street is that there are about 65,000 people that come for it. And all the action in town and pretty girls make it fun to just watch the race... In my younger days I ran the half marathon. Always thought it sucked, and swore I'd never do a full. But, peer pressure works pretty well. Ha.
Anyhow, after getting up at 4:45 (runners get up way to early) and waiting in lines for the biffies, the race was off at 7:30. My only goals were too get under 4 hours and have a negative half marathon split.
Marathoning is not really anything at all like the bike races I am used to. Granted I was not racing to win or anything, just going, but still simple things like taking leaks and such is greatly simplified by not having the fear of getting dropped and not catching on. In general it is an easier concept. Drafting does not really apply, no KOM no sprints, just go. Kinda boring if you ask me... For much of the race I just ran my own pace, once in a while I would come across friends and would run with them for a bit, but I think most started to fast and were dying, which is why I caught them.
The course goes along the north shore from Two Harboors to downtown Duluth. The fans and fun started when we got to the city limits. Beer handups started showing up, I had some friends share some champange. I even found "The official Grandma's beer feed," complete with a slip-n-slide. That was quite entertaining and was a good break from the heat.
A bit before the slip-n-slide the 3:40 pace setter appeared next to me, giving me a good pace for the 7 miles I had left. Most people I have talked to say the race starts to hurt around mile 20, which gives you almost an hour to wallow in pain. I really did not feel fatigued till 24, at that point with only 2 miles left, there was not enough race left to hurt. It worked out quite well.
All in all I was out in the sun for 3:38.52. Not to bad for not training for this, plus I had a pretty good time doing it.
My legs feel great right now, the muscles at least. The most painful thing are the blisters... And the sorest muscles are my shoulders. Victory!

Damn shoes.

Like I hinted at above, I was doing this thing to see what all the fuss was about, see how hard they actually are, and to say I've done one.
I am not sure what the fuss was about, I could find many more fun things to do besides running for slightly over 3.5 hours on hot blacktop. Marathoning is definitely not something I am going to get too serious about, I have no desire to run copious numbers of them.
Again, I did not run hard in the race, I just did it. But still compared to bike racing it was easy. My heart rate was a stable 140 or so the whole time, never got out of breath or went anerobic. I know there have been bike races where I've just sat in and they have been easy, and I feel no more tired today, then after one of those. My feet hurt more, but other then that not to bad.
I'm not going to say I am not ever going to do another marathon. I can see someday actually racing one, and finding out how fast I can do one. But that would require training for it, and bike racing is more fun. So for now, I'll stick with that.