GR Marathon 3:17 … it’s the coffee

Marathoners in Grand Rapids couldn’t ask for a better day to run. The weather was beautiful, the sun was out, and the temps were in the 50’s… perfect marathon weather. We had 600 marathoners and 400 half-marathoners.

I stuck close to one of the marathon pacers today. The pacing team did a remarkable job keeping us on track and teaching us along the way. Here are a couple of reminders I remember…

• Touch your thumb to your ring finger when you run… it keeps you from making a fist, tensing up, and wasting energy.
• Save steps, consider your positioning on the course
• Be patient… let the marathon come to you.
• Relax… relax… relax.
• Everyone sees you at the start… but they record the finish.
• And then many of the runners wanted the pacers to tell them about Boston… which was fascinating to me and will be the subject of my next post.

I ran a consistent race. I would have loved to break 3:15 but just didn’t have enough gas at the end. The 3:17 is enough for me to qualify for the Boston Marathon, so that’s pretty cool. I’ll have to see if we’ll do it. The secret weapon for me today… coffee. I usually don’t drink it before a race. Today, I had a half-cup during my pre-race routine and I think it helped. Even if it didn’t, it felt good to drink coffee!

Mucho thanks to the best fans in the world- the Argue and Livermore girls! They were awesome cheerleaders and even threw leaves at me at mile 16. All the kiddos liked the go-gurt at the end of the race, food station.

Oh, and I’m going to lose a toenail. I think that’s cool.