Denver Marathon 2009

5:26:44 – 26.2 Miles

The reason you haven’t seen many posts here is because I haven’t been doing many runs. Yet here is a post with a recap of me running a marathon after said not many runs.

While I knew this race was going to hurt, I knew I was going to finish. The next question was going to be when I would finish. Interestingly, I finished about a minute faster then my first marathon in May. For my first marathon, I actually trained for months. No, I am not recommending not training. In fact, this race showed me how much more I can do if I did train.

The 2009 Denver Marathon is quite incredible … perfect race-day weather, excellent organization, and an awesome race crew of volunteers helping and motivating along the course. The first 14 miles of the course went very well and ahead of pace. I didn’t even turn on the music until mile 6 which is normal.

At mile 16 I was hungry. That’s a new one for me as the GU is normally enough. After going through the aid station, I came around the corner and thought I was seeing a mirage. A group of very nice people had a card table out with a pile of potato chips and shots of beer. Seeing as I was breaking all of the traditional rules of running a marathon, I took part. Interestingly enough, it helped!

The next 5 miles was a lot of me having conversations with me. I made a deal with myself that I would only walk if there was a slight incline. Amazing the debate that you can have with yourself over what an incline is. It worked out so that I actually did a bit running then expected and because each time was downhill, it meant at a faster pace helping catch up on some time.

The last 5 miles was fun because I was running towards the Denver city skyline. I had some chaffing issues that were causing pain and making me wonder if I was bleeding. Had lots of thoughts about church and expanding the space and programs being offered at Cross of Christ Lutheran Church. Lots of great ideas came to me! Fortunately I remembered most of them

I must say that it is great that my name was printed on my race number as it was pretty cool to have people cheering me on by name. Again, great race support staff and motivators! All the way to the end I had that cheering right into the announcer at the finish line. Fun to be conscience enough to see the cameras taking photos and to be able to crank out a small smile.

Overall, a fantastically organized event and a great accomplishment to finish. Looking ahead to breaking the 5 hour mark with the next marathon I run.