I woke up at 3:30 a.m., got out the door at 4, got to the race site at 6:15, picked up my bib, stretched, and was ready to run by the 7 a.m. start time. I do really love that at small-town races, one can show up less than an hour before the start and still have plenty of time. This year's event was even smaller than the previous two that I ran (2009 and 2023), with only 89 marathon participants.
The course was still fresh in my mind from two years ago, so all I had to do was get out there and have fun - no stopwatch, no pressure, just running. As with Little Rock, I started very conservatively and hit the first checkpoint at 4.6 miles with 40:30 on the clock (8:48 pace). I found the 3:45 pacer and stuck with him for a while, chatting with him about all the marathons we've done throughout the country (boy, did he have me beat!), but I was feeling good and pulled away, promising him that I would hang back again and meet up with him later. At the next checkpoint, 9.4 miles, I was at 1:20:35 (8:24 overall pace).
I never really liked loops for marathon courses because I like to maximize the amount of ground I can cover and the sights I can see during my fleeting visits to the various towns in which I run races. There is one fun benefit of loops, though - you can interact much more often with your fellow participants. After a quick one-mile loop in the downtown, this course follows Buckeye Avenue for a couple of miles, takes a turn to 2000 Avenue and Hawk Road, then turns off into a loop through a park, comes back to Hawk, then turns west on 1900 Avenue before the turnaround sends us back to re-trace our steps, then do it all again.
This means we went through that park four times, and did an out-and-back twice on all the other roads; and it gave us the opportunity to cheer on the front-runners as they came at us and offer encouragement to the back-of-packers. I said things like "Good job!" to so many runners that a fellow near me playfully told me, "Good job good-jobbin'!" And every time I saw that 3:45 pacer, I said, "I promise, I'm going to slow down!"
But of course, I didn't. In fact, I sped up, hitting the 13.6 mile checkpoint at 1:52:34 (8:17 total pace), which did finally remind me to hang back a bit. I was not looking to gun for a 3:36 finish time - this was supposed to be a fun and comfortable race. There was a tall woman ahead of me wearing bright colors - so I decided to keep my eye on her as a beacon for the rest of the race. I did not know what her pace was, but it felt right to me and she unknowingly became my new pacer.
My new friend, with whom I exchanged pleasantries at each successive turnaround, helped me stay consistent through the next two checkpoints - 17.8 miles at 2:30:34 (8:27 total pace) and 22.5 at 3:10:27 (8:28 total pace). With less than four miles to go, I felt surprisingly good, so I dug deep and found the energy to push the pace. I caught up to her in the final two miles as we made our way onto Buckeye for the last time, and I said, "Come on! Let's DO THIS!"
She tried to keep up with me a bit, but she did not have it in her, telling me to go on ahead. I got back down in the low 8's for my pace in those last two miles and finished strong into the little Old Town section of Abilene, with a final time of 3:41:03 - arms extended, smiling big, hands making a "5" and a "0", and letting everyone know, "I'M FIFTY!" like I was Sally O'Malley.
It was good to be back in Abilene, with the Eisenhower Marathon now being my first three-time race. And it ain't so bad to be a 50-year-old marathon runner, either.
