GRANDMA'S WEEKEND

I ended up driving to my parents house of Friday and staying there with my daughter. I woke at 5:30 and drove to Duluth, parked my car and hopped on my bike. Along the way I bumped into Evan who was out for a morning jog, after running the 5k the previous evening. We agreed to hook up later at mile 22 and watch the marathon.

Soon after talking with Evan, the half marathoners came by. I thought conditions were already miserable; 65 degrees at 6:30 in the morning. Not terrible for a half marathon, but with the marathon not starting for another hour, temps were sure to rise. I saw lots of familar faces in the half, including Jim who went on to run 1:28 and win the 60-64 age group by nearly 6 minutes.

I watched for a few more minutes and then bike to about the 13.5 mile mark. I would have liked to been at the half way point, but the way the course is set up, it would have been hard to get to. At this point of the day it was so foggy that I couldn't see 100 meters down the road. What's really weird is that as soon as the leader went by, the fog lifted.

I watched my friends Jason and Jenna (both trying for Oly Trials qualifiers) go by, but had no idea how they were doing. Right behind Jenna was Dave, one of the guys I shared a room with the rest of the weekend. Derek, a friend of Jenna's who I trained with a few times, was not far behind and looking strong. After that Joyce and Scott were about 5 seconds apart and probably on about 3-hour pace at the time.

I jumped on my bike and hauled ass to mile 18 - just in time to see Dave, who said he felt like crap, and Derek who continued to look good. Unfortunately I missed Jenna, but at least that meant she was running well. There was no way to see any one else at that point and still catch Jenna at mile 22, so back on the bike one last time.

I made it to mile 22 about 1 minute before Jenna. Again, I had no real idea how she was running. She looked good and didn't give me any negative body language, but I had no idea what her time was. I had a feeling she was running sub-2:47 pace, but not positive.

I spent the rest of the day at the bottom of Lemon Drop hill watching people struggle as the clouds burned off and things heated up. I gave Jenna a call to find out she ran 2:45:51 (12th woman, 63rd overall), a PR by 1:19 and more importantly an OTQ by 1:09. Derek stayed strong and ran 2:55:27, Dave faded to 3:11:07, Scott and Joyce ran respectable times in those conditions, 3:08:26 and 3:10:24, respectively. I bumped into Jason in the evening and he said he dropped out at 22. He ran 2:23 here last year. His training partner, Michael Reneau, had an awesome race finishing 8th overall (first American) in 2:20:28.

More to come on the race soon.

Quote of the day:
"Yeah, I made it - 2:45:51." - Jenna Boren