Last week in my post on marathon betting, I confidently gave all of my readers a guarantee lock: that I would not win the 2005 New Las Vegas Marathon. I predicted correctly: Kenyan Stephen Kiogora broke the tape at 2:11:56. You can see the results here.
Around the time he crossed, I was trudging up Carey Ave. You can go here to see my New Las Vegas Marathon Live Results.
Since I finished in 3:52:10, I’m very happy. I was shooting for an under-4 hour finish. I would not have been able to do it without the Las Vegas Roadrunners and Las Vegas Track Club. Without my pace group I probably would have fallen back around mile 16 or so.
If you are thinking of running a marathon and are curious about the experience of someone who isn’t a runner by nature (I only started doing this a few years ago, and I train more for general strength and fitness than distance running), here’s my take:
Since I’d done training runs with the Roadrunners over the past few months, I was definitely physically ready, but a lot of the race is psychological. After about 3 hours, I didn’t have any acute pain, but my legs were definitely not happy. The last two miles were very painful.
Still, it was great to cross the finish line with my head up, not hobbling in terrible pain. I was hardly able to walk for about 40 minutes afterward, at which time I vowed never to run a marathon again. Today I feel much better, with a little soreness in my quads, but otherwise fine, and I think I could be talked into running another one.
I’m going to be writing a KNPR commentary and probably a LVPB article about my thoughts on the marathon being in Las Vegas, so this isn’t the last I’ve got to say.
