Instead, it takes place in a little town about 10 miles outside of Springfield called New Berlin.
Actually, that is not even true. It takes place in the farmland outside of the town of New Berlin, which is outside of the Illinois capital of Springfield.
I, for one, had no problem at all with any of that. Starting and ending at Danenberger Family Vineyards - with easy in/easy out parking and a comfortable 8 a.m. start time - the race was small, friendly, low-stress, and flat. Really, really flat. With long straightaway roads and few turns. My kind of race.
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| Ready to run |
I hung with the 1:50 half-marathon pacer for most of the first half. He had a group of about six folks running with him. I like to follow my own body's rhythms, so sometimes I got ahead of the group, but most of the time, they stayed in front of me by about 30 seconds to a minute. It was a chilly morning (in the 30s) but the sun was coming up and there was not much wind. It was a perfect day for a marathon, so I put on my headphones, listened to some Phish and enjoyed all the nothingness of the farmland and blue sky.
The marathon was a double loop, with a total of 13 turns on the course, averaging a turn per mile for each loop. It was so nice and easy and relaxed that I felt no pressure to push the pace. After finishing my first half with a 1:50:17, I let the pace group go and slowed down to ensure that I had enough energy to get me through the second loop.
I thought a lot about the New Jersey Marathon, 17 years ago, and how the double loop messed with my brain - how the second loop seemed so much longer and was more difficult, even though it was the same darn course. I was not going to let that happen here because I am no longer shooting for PRs, or really, any time goal at all other than to get in under four hours. And even then, if I cannot do that, not a big deal. I have nothing to prove anymore.
But I am still going to run the best race I can, so I kept a steady pace and, somehow, started passing up many of the folks that had been ahead of me in the pace group. They had all spread out and I managed to pass at least four of them (including one poor gal who said she needed to pee, but there were no porta-potties). Some of them were struggling pretty hard, yet I was feeling great.
Not even the pain in my big toe where the nail was falling off could bring down my good time as I sang along with Phish, as by the 20th mile, there was no one around me. And when I saw someone, way ahead of me in the 21st mile, I eventually passed him, too.
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| Home stretch |
By the time I got to the final turn, with two more miles still to go, the temperature had warmed to the 50s and I had worked up a sweat, but I still felt like I was cruising. I picked up the pace a bit and worked my way toward the finish line. I have never run a marathon in which I could see the finish line from miles away. I just stared down the road at it, focused on it, and kept running to it.
I did not have a stopwatch and there were no mile clocks, so I had no idea what my pace was. I also did not care. I knew I would be coming in under four hours, that was for sure. And now, at 51 years old with 34 marathons under my belt, I could not have been happier to finish at 3:44:35.
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| Feeling good after the race |
A decade ago, that would have been a disappointment. But it is a success now. A triumph. Because after all these years, I am having nothing but fun running marathons. Eisenhower, Little Rock, Oklahoma City, Sandhills, and this one - all sub-four and all for the absolute joy of the sport. I am happily, gleefully, in love with my post-PR life of marathon running.
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| Gloria and me with Abe Lincoln, actually in Springfield after the race |
