7th Annual Christiana Care Health Delaware Marathon Running Fes

May 15, 2010

OK, my first half marathon wearing the PostOP-PR shirt is in the books.  It was a great day for a race.  The weather was perfect, the parking was perfect, the festivities were awesome.  My time was ok.  The course is nice but includes four hills that are back breakers.

The race starts at 6:15am for slow marathoners, followed by a 7:00am for the rest of the marathoners.  The relay runners start at 7:05am.  They only allow 2,000 participants total for all three events.  The half marathoners started at 7:20a. 

The first two and half miles follow the Christiana Rivers and loop around the shipyard.  It is a nice flat run, and I kept a fairly decent early pace.  The next two miles slopes upward toward the main part of the city and then a short downhill to the Brandywine River.  You then run around the Brandywine River and cross the swinging bridge and then head up a steep mile long hill toward the Art Museum.  My running partner decided at this point to up her stride and proceeded to incredase her pace.  Needless to say, I let her take off without me.  I would see her two additional times before the finish line, but had no aspirations of keeping her pace.  The hill was the best part of my run, but then I had to figure out how to run flat.  In addition, I was surrounded by a lot of people doing the run-walk method, and they must see a sign on me saying -- Please stop right in front of me!  Three times people decided to brake  right in front of me.

At the seven mile mark we ran through a nicer old neighborhood in the city and then over to Little Italy.  My toes were really bugging me since they hadn't healed well from the last major event I did two weeks ago.  I plodded along for the next three miles, running as well as possible.  Getting lapped at this point by some of the elite marathoners (they run the same course twice) was extremely disheartening to the psych, but I continued.  At mile 11 I was back running along the river, my toes were very aggravating at this point but I knew I could finish and I also knew that my running partner would be waiting for me (she gets my free beer).  As I rounded the turn away from the river at the 12 mile mark, the last major hill was just daunting.  It was just putting one foot in front of the other, and plodding to the center of town.  The last half mile was downhlll and felt pretty good, but I was a little worried about getting a charlie horse before the finish line.  As I hit the train station with .2 miles I decided it was time to finish strong.  I was able to pass several half marathoners and several relay runners right before the finish line.  My running buddy was yelling at me to finish strong, so I had to hightail it across the finish line.

I had registered with a time of 2:40 to finish this race, and I finished in 2:40:11 so I shouldn't be too disappointed.   The good thing is I have no pain in the feet (other than the toes), or knees, or hips.  So I got my first PR (2:40) while running for team PostOp PR.  Not my fastest, but I'll take it .

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