Saturday, October 11, 2008

Pants Party

The 2006 Chicago Marathon has been my best 26.2 mile race to date. Things just kind of fell into place that for that day in October. I had a really good training session. I felt like I was very prepared and had some confidence after running a race exactly to plan the previous December in Vegas.


The weather was cool and damp. The dampness was unnecessary, but the cool, cloudy day is a marathon runner’s dream. I had “PANTS PARTY” on my shirt, as in "I would like to extend to you an invitation to the pants party.” For those of you unfamiliar, that is a line from Anchorman. On the back, I ironed on “C. Monday,” a somewhat obscure reference to Cleveland investigative reporter Carl Monday featured on the website www.deadspin.com and later the Daily Show. I sent in a couple photos to Will Leitch, then the editor of Deadspin. Here is the result:

http://deadspin.com/sports/marathon/get-away-from-me-marathoners-210021.php



I set out to run a 3:30, or an 8:00/mile pace. I ran a pretty even first half in 1:44:12, or a 7:57 pace. As usual, I slowed down in the second half. At the 24.8 mile mark, I was at 3:20:17. I was going to need to pick up the pace in order to finish at 3:30. Over the last 1.4 miles, I ran a 7:49.2 pace, getting me to the finish line at 3:30:57.


Yes, that counts for a 3:30.

My final pace was an 8:02/mile. I placed 4483nd out of 33618.


Some pics:

Tiffany and me after the race


Nick, me and Michael after the race

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