almost time

So, I'm here in New York City. and I ran through Central Park this morning. The weather was perfect, I felt amazing & I saw the finish line. Fairly amazing. But what made me really happy, what gave me a huge confidence about tomorrow and created an great sense of calm was the music that randomly came up during the three miles. A sampling of the lyrics that made my feel like this is going to be a good day:

Marathon by Rush - "it's a test of ultimate will, the heartbreak climb uphill, got to pick up the pace if you want to stay in the race..." This is not a flashy or upbeat song but the lyrics & the feel of it and the rhythm really set the mood for a good solid long run.
Party in the USA by Miley Cyrus - "Got my hands up, they're playing my song, the butterflies fly away. I.m nodding my head like "yeah," moving my hips like "yeah". Got my hands up, they're playing my song, and I know I'm gonna be OK." yeah, I know, Miley... But whatevs, it's a good song & it was perfect this morning.
Hungry for Heaven by Dio - "So just hold on. you can make it happen for you. reach for the stars and you will fly.... We are sunlight, we can sparkle and shine and our dreams are what we're made of. So just hold on, you can make it happen for you. Reach for the stars and you will fly."
I Gotta Feeling by Black-Eyed Peas - no lyrics needed. 'nuf said.

So, I have a good feeling about number 10. And no matter the result, I WILL enjoy the ride. it's been awesome so far.*


*but, really, I will enjoy it so much more if my finish time starts with a 4... I'm just saying...

Packing & prep

So, we're getting close now... and I'm REALLY glad I took tomorrow off! Besides having lunch with one of my bestest buddies tomorrow (Hi, Mel!!), I have a lot to do... like pack... and get everything lined up for the weekend. Because while I've been planning on this and preparing for the race for MONTHS now, I haven't really done a good job yet of planning preparing for the trip that comes with it!  I used to travel for work and was a master at packing a week's worth of work clothes, running clothes and lounging around at hotel/dinner out clothes into one small roll-aboard. But, that was a long time ago it seems, and I have to remind myself how to be Road Warrior chick. But, really, I'm less concerned about what that part and more worried about having everything I need for race morning/day at hand. So, here is my prep list, prompted by Erica's planning and Heather's list: 

1.             Pack race-morning bag (throw-away bag)

1. Clif bar (breakfast) – bring from home
2. Orange (breakfast) – grocery store or hotel concierge lounge
3. PB/honey (one hour pre-race) – hotel concierge lounge
4. Banana (one hour pre-race) – grocery store or hotel concierge lounge
5. Bottled water – grocery store in NY
6. Baby wipes – bring from home
7. Hand sanitizer – bring from home

2.             Pack post-race bag for friends to take to finish line (backpack)

1. Sweatshirt/fleece
2. Gatorade
3. Crocs
4. Dry socks
5. Protein powder
6. Clif bar
7. Baby wipes
8. Brush & Hair clip/ties

3.             Pick out, wash & pack race-day clothes (lay out night before)

1. Long yellow tank bra
2. Yellow LS tech shirt with bib
3. Texas flag skirt - it arrived!! YAY!
4. Moisture-wicking underwear
5. MCM socks & black starter socks - race-day decision which ones to use
6. Shoes - washed & drying in garage right now
7. Visor
8. Gloves (cheap, if they get lost no biggie)
9. Throw-away sweatshirt
10. Throw-away blanket

the Skirt! It arrived!! 

4.             Pack fuel belt

1. Camera - small Kodak, fits in extra bottle pocket
2. iPod (to calm pre-race jitters, not using during race)
3. Clif bloks ( 2 packs - margarita & Cran-Raz)
4. Clif bar (1 bar)
5. Ibuprofen
6. Biofreeze pack
7. Bodyglide sample
8. Chapstick
9. 20 oz half-water, half-Gatorade, salt 

I'll run around tomorrow morning getting everything on the list, as well as going to the mall and having a shirt made for the expo.  I'll be there at 9:00 AM Saturday morning and if all goes well, will be wearing a shirt that says this on the back, so I'll be easy to spot! 

I'll Follow You to Central Park 

if You'll Follow Me on Twitter

@txskatemom

#INGNYCM

FOUR DAYS!!! 

Monday Pre-Marathon Ramblings

A glimpse into the brain of a 9-time marathon preparing for NYC:

• My body is ready. The mind? Not so much. The freak-outs have commenced. Luckily, I have awesome friends who email me, text me and call me daily to tell me that I Got This.  Thank you. It means more than you will ever know. 
• I may or may not have had a dream this weekend, a very vivid dream, in which the numbers 4:52 were featured prominently... 
• I am staring at a bunch of beautiful yellow roses in full bloom. My husband is a rock star. Not only because he brings me flowers for no reason, but that's part of it. The sad thing about it is that the cats are now exiled from my office lest they eat the roses. They may be attempting to tunnel under the door as we speak...
• I think I am in love with Ben Davis. Go watch his original video, then listen to his adorable drawl during his interview on Fox Business, and then, seriously, look at this pic.  Tell me you're not in love with him, too!! The pointing! I love the pointing!! 
• The suitcase is open on the floor in the bedroom. Things will start being tossed into it as I think about them, to be organized & finalized on Thursday. First thing in - the moisture-wicking underwear. Yes, those are important. 
• Have I talked about how awesome my husband is? Because he is. For lots of reasons. Mostly because I barely saw him yesterday between my Halloween 5K, skate practice, my nap/his yardwork, and hockey and trick-or-treating. But he still made time at the end of the day to make ME feel special. We've had times in the past where that didn't always happen. That makes it so much nicer when it does. And for the record, I did what I could to reciprocate! ;)
• I am very lucky to have some really good girlfriends come along on my marathon trip with me. I'm excited to see them  at the finish line. A friendly face at the end of that trek is always welcome. 
• I used the words "crushed" and "devastated" yesterday when talking about how I would feel if I didn't break 5:00 this week. I think I would be somewhere in between those two emotions. I'm not going to give it much more thought, though. I know it won't be the end of the world if it doesn't happen - I've had a LOT of perspective-shifting things go on in my life in the last six months - but I also know I am more trained and fit and poised to do it now than I have ever been going into the last nine starts. 

That's all I can process right now. There's more bouncing around in there, but I can't put words to it yet. Maybe later this week. Maybe not.

Six Days.

EDITED TO ADD:  When did it become FREAKIN' NOVEMBER?!!!

My Favorite Finish Line Pic This Week

at the McKinney Halloween Hustle 5k. That's one of my best friends from high school next to me. Hadn't seen him in 20+ years but we'd caught up on FaceBook for nearly two years now. Finally decided to see each other in person at this race. He married my best friend from fourth grade - I had a wonderful time reconnecting with both of them. It was a great morning! 

Thursday Thirteen

Many thanks to my girl Mel for reminding me about Thursday Thirteen. Here goes!

1. 10 days. 
2. I have some amazing friends. I don't think I knew the depths of their friendship until very recently. I guessed, but damn. I am a lucky, lucky, lucky woman. 
3. I hate tapering. I feel fat and slow. I am hungry but cannot eat as much as I'm used to, lest I gain the four pounds I lost working with the nutritionist and need my own damn ferry to get to Staten Island on race day. 
4. I found a perfect long-sleeved yellow shirt for the race. I think it will be fine even into the 60s, so I'm excited that my wardrobe choice is finalized. 
5. My Texas skirt had to go back and get exchanged for a different size. I don't want to talk about it, mostly because I had to get a larger size than originally ordered (I blame the Spandex in it) and because my awesome, cool Texas skirt came from OKLAHOMA!! WTF?!
6. Said skirt better be back from OKLAHOMA before next Thursday. It arrived in two days after it was ordered, so it should be here well before then.
7. My shoes look like crap, after only 150 miles or so. I need to wash them before next week or they won't be welcome on the plane, either. blick. 
8. We've been finalizing plans for the weekend, including meetups with Twitter folks and dinner reservations. It's getting so close! 
9. I get to run with an old high school friend on Sunday. He is recovering from knee surgery so he can only do about 13-minute miles - he's worried about slowing me down. I think that's perfect - I can talk easily at that pace!! 
10. The Sunday run will be at a Halloween race. I will not be wearing a costume, but I will be bringing out the tutu!! That's about as "dressed up" as I'll get. 
11. I have the day off tomorrow. Parent-teacher conferences are at 9:30 for Ben-jammin' & then we have the day free until his bowling party at 4:30. Should be a fun day for us. 
12. I've stayed up way too late all week long. I'm not doing the "rest" part of the taper well. At all. 
13. Did I mention there are 10 days?  EEEEP!

Happy Birthday to Us!

One of the things I love about my life is that I share my birthday with my baby boy. Growing up, I hated having a fall birthday - the weather was always hideous and I could never have a big outside party like my brother and sister. I always had an orange & black cake and Halloween decorations instead of regular birthday colors. I swore up and down I would NEVER have a child with a late October birthday....

And then, given the choice of dates for a required c-section, I was able to pick my son's birthday. There was no choice. It had to be. He is my favorite birthday present ever. I haven't had a "real" birthday celebration of my own since that day ten years ago when our family went from three to four. I haven't needed to. It's not about me at all, it's about him. It's about us.

This summer's art camp project. Yeah, he's pretty good.

My Ben-jammin' is the light of our life - he is bright, imaginative and creative. He's the artist, perpetually drawing, writing, dancing. He eschews traditional sports preferred by the "sports kids" at his school and prefers instead gymnastics, skating, and the occasional 5K with mom.

Just joined Boys' team gymnastics this year - will start competing in January

He still sleeps with his stuffed blue bunny, and he demands that I tuck him in at night, even though he stays awake for another half-hour reading juvenile historical fiction, Tolkien and knock-knock joke books. He plays video games as much as we allow but is also just as content to spin around the living room acting out parts of old monster movies. He adores his grandfather; they've gotten so much closer since my mother-in-law's death and have really helped each other through the past year. He is simultaneously intrigued and terrified of things like the giant Humboldt squid, extra-terrestrials, the Yeti and 2012. Not unlike his mother, he prefers to wear a race tee and gym shorts, preferably with no shoes, to "dress" clothes with buttons and zippers and collars.

On the morning of his 10th birthday

Happy 10th Birthday, Ben! You made our family complete and your smile brightens my life in ways you will never know! I love you, baby boy!

On our way to our birthday dinner. Note we're both wearing t-shirts!

Sharing our birthday dessert. I get the cobbler, he gets the ice cream!

My First DNF

So, as I mentioned a few posts ago, my boys had campouts over the weekend a couple of weeks ago, so they left me to my own devices for about 24 hours, which is more than enough time for me to get into trouble on my own. I did have a good day sketched out, and started it off with a nice little trail run, meant only as about a little shakeout to enjoy the trails at River Legacy. Except that I got lost. On a looped trail. Because I'm just like that.

What happened is that I got turned around and found a little dirt road leading off the path. I wasn't sure where it led, to I decided to follow it and find out. So in a way, my detour was kinda-sorta planned. Sure it was... In any case, what ended up happening is that it actually led me out of the park and back to the major road that runs south of the park, only about a mile and half west of there... It was a nice little adventure, except that I ended up having to run about two and a half miles on concrete sidewalks in my trail shoes, which are really not all that comfortable for non-trail running. Plus, I hadn't left the house until after 9:30, since I had to try to locate AWOL sleeping bags and camping supplies for certain Scouts were not, ahem, prepared... So while it was cool enough in the trails under cover of the trees, on the sidewalks it was close to hot. But, the extra mileage was fine because I made up some of the miles I had missed earlier in the week.

After Tyler, I took a day off on Monday, then got back out on Tuesday for a little 4+ mile run around the park near my house, just to test my left knee and make sure that all the tweakiness was gone. It was, so I felt good about that, but when Wednesday's run came around, I was still very physically tired from the weekend's efforts. I planned to run later in the evening, after my husband and son came home from hockey, but when they returned, the desire to sit and actually talk to my husband and veg on the couch was pretty strong. And for the first time in my 15 weeks of training so far, I willingly and intentionally skipped a training run (I did miss on a couple of weeks ago because of work, but that was out of my control and I made up mileage that week). I was just tired. And I was OK with it, especially considering the knee probably could use the rest, and that if not for that issue and the hills in Tyler that will not be as much of a challenge in NYC,  i really feel that I am well-prepared thus far.  But, skipping that run on Wednesday meant that my total miles for the week were down by the time the weekend rolled around. And that kinda freaked me out. I really want to be sure I don't shortchange my training this cycle, so I did have some concerns about losing miles this week, even though intellectually and emotionally I knew I was doing the right thing by cutting that one workout. So I was OK with going out longer than I expected on Saturday morning.

I puttered around the rest of the day, until it was time to meet up friends for the Chupacabra 10K out at Lake Grapevine. We had planned to meet for dinner first, then head out for the run. We had a lovely time and chatted about Chicago (Suann and Marci had just finished the week before) and Tyler, and got Greg & Fiona all excited for their first full in December at White Rock.

Marci caught a chupa!! 

Before we knew it, it was time to head out to the race start. By now, it was very dark. There were about 100 or so people milling around, all with headlamps on and waiting for instructions.  We may have laughed a little bit during the pre-race speech, as we were greeted by the ambulance and warnings about how the trail might be slightly uneven.  I believe the tweet that was sent out at that time was something like "We are so screwed." A couple of minutes later, after a very dark group shot of us, we were off.  We knew Greg was going to take off fast, because he's a beast like that, but Marci and Suann had said they were going to just walk. Well, they lied!! Once we got past the first dirt road section into the single-track, they took off pretty quickly, too. But I knew that I had to be careful. There was just too much at stake for me to fall or turn an ankle or do anything to jeopardize my big race which was just three weeks out.  So I literally moved to the side of the trail and let everyone pass me. EVERYONE. I didn't care if I was DFL, I just didn't want to get hurt.

Pretty soon, everyone was way in front of me and the little bobbing headlights drew far enough away that I was out there completely on my own. In a few minutes (about 15 by my watch), I saw the Mile 1 marker, and was pretty impressed with my time, considering I was doing not much more than a quick hike. By now, I really had to pay attention to the little glow sticks hanging from the trees and make sure that I was on the right track. It was very quiet and spooky in a Blair Witch kind of way.  I could still hear runners ahead of me (or maybe next to me -hard to tell the way the trail loops and turns) laughing and talking, and now and then I'd hear "Rock!" or "Root!" or "Drop!" as runners warned each other about the hazards on the track. Soon enough I came to a road and the first water stop.  At this point, I was pretty sure I was the last one out there, as I hadn't heard anyone behind me for a while. My second mile was about 17 minutes and change, a little longer than the first since it was entirely on the trail and didn't have that first fast dirt road section.

Somewhere about halfway through mile 3, my headlamp started to fade on me. I had stopped to get fresh batteries on the way to dinner, knowing that I hadn't used the headlamp but once or twice since El Scorcho
back in July. But, being me, I grabbed the wrong size and didn't realize it until right before start time. So I had to make do. If I'd been able to keep up with Marci & Suann, I think I might have been OK, but they were moving too fast for my comfort out there - I fall regularly on the trails in the daylight!  As the batteries died a slow & painful death, my light got dimmer & dimmer, to where it made it tough on my depth perception. It was bright enough to see that there was a rock, or a root, or a hole or a drop, but not bright enough to see how high up off the ground it was, or how steep the descent was.  So I found myself slowing down more and more just to be sure I had good footing.  About this time, i came across a couple of girls who had slowed to a walk in front of me.  Turns out they had signed up for this as their first 10K!  They didn't know at the time it was a trail run, so not only were they not very experienced runners, but they had never been on a trail before! Wow - what an introduction!!  They let me tag along with them for a bit and share their light as we worked our way to the next water stop.

By the time we reached it, a little bit past mile 3, I had decided that I was done. The lamp was all but dead, and it was just too dark to continue without it. Add to that the fact that I had a 22-mile long run schedule the next day and I was ready to give it up for the greater good. There were Marines (in full dress blues - swoon!) manning the water stop, so I was able to chat with them and hang out until everyone was through that part of the course. Turned out that I was not the last one through - there were another two groups of abut 5-6 runners each that came by about 20-25 minutes after I did. As much as I would have loved to keep going, it just didn't make any sense to, and it was just too risky. Besides, I already had my prize for the night - the BEST race shirt ever! Who could resist this piece of awesomeness?

BEST race shirt ever!

So, there you go. My first DNF. I didn't feel bad about it. I had signed up for this run knowing that it would be a crazy thing to do so close to NYC. But I couldn't resist the Chupa. And I ended up having a great time with some very cool people at dinner before and I had a great experience on the trail in the dark.  I know for sure that I am looking forward to going out there again, during the day time!!

Big-time congrats to Suann, Greg and Marci, who completely rocked this race.  Marci & Suann were a week removed from Chicago and turned in times that would be enviable on pavement, and Greg, well, Greg is just one degree removed from being Chupa-beastly himself, so you know he did awesome (I think he ended up coming in 12th overall for men). Definitely this is a race I'll do again, and next time, I'll be sure to not have an "A" race scheduled so soon afterward and will be sure to get the right size batteries!!

Hunting Chupacabra!!

Well, dang... OK, then Friday Five...

So apparently, I missed Thursday and posting another Thursday Thirteen. Well, phooey. So, how 'bout this? We'll go with Friday Five. I do have a draft started of a recap of last weekend's Chupacabra run and my last long run for NYCM, but it's not done yet. And because it's already Friday morning, I obviously haven't made the time to finish it yet... but I'll work on it this weekend, for sure. There are pictures!

So, here you go, five random things for your Friday:

1. In exactly 14 days, I will be headed to DFW with three of my friends for our trip to New York City. It will be my first time back since July 2008. I am beyond pumped. We are meeting on Saturday morning to plan out the weekend's activities. and have brunch. because anytime you can have brunch with your girlfriends? It's a good thing. 
2. I had to re-arrange the schedule this week because I took time to do some massage therapy on my knee Tuesday evening. I could have gone out when I got home afterward, but I felt it was better to give it another rest day. I think I was right. That meant I went two days in a row without a run. That hasn't happened since the end of May. I was VERY ready to run on Wednesday. 
3. I am up really, really early because I'm supposed to be finishing up a proposal response for work... We all see how that's working out for me... 
4. I've had to really focus on nutrition the last week. I took a few more days of relaxed eating after Tyler than I intended to, so I've made an effort to get back on plan as completely as possible, especially given my reduced mileage this week and next (and next...).  The good news is that even though I wasn't sticking to my nutrition plan as well as I should have been in that Tyler recovery week, I was still eating cleaner than I was before I started working with my nutritionist. And as of yesterday morning, I'm down another pound. Not that I pay attention to the scale... really... as much as I used to...
5. My son turns 10 next week. I haven't yet planned his party (scheduled for next Friday afternoon) because he hadn't made up his mind where he wanted to have it until last night. And because I haven't pushed him on it because then it would be my bad. I'm going to be spending time on the phone calling his peeps' parentals tomorrow, I think, and hoping that at least some of them can make it!! 

That's five! Five is easier than 13, that's for sure. I should get back to that proposal now. Have a great day!



oooh, ooooh! I forgot to include this, so you get a bonus! I WANT this skirt. It may or may not be on its way to me as we speak, actually! It says it's 90% cotton, which worries me a bit for 26 miles, but I'll just slather on the BodyGlide and go with it. How could I not?!

Thursday Thirteen

I always kind of like these Thursday Thirteen posts when I read them on other people's blogs, so I thought I'd see what I came up with today. Just so you're warned, it's going to be random. Welcome to my brain!

1. 23 days 'til New York. Eeep.
2. I really, really like my new Heels & Hills long-sleeved tech shirt. It's a groovy blue color and has these black panels down the side that are slimming in a very flattering way. I may wear it all the time, as "real" clothes, it's just that nice. 
3. I don't feel like I just ran a marathon. Probably because I didn't. I ran 2/3 of a marathon and walked the rest. And I'm really OK with that, I am. I'm looking at the upside, that the pain in my knee is gone and I feel strong enough to do another 22-miler this weekend.
4. Yeah, that... anyone want to do part or all of a 22-miler with me this weekend? at about an 11:15-11:30 pace? Have shoes, will travel. I hate running long alone... 
5. I got that awesome little miniature rose plant at the race last weekend, right? But I've not the slightest idea how in the world to take care of it so that it doesn't die and become a sad little pot with sticks coming out of it. I'm pretty sure it's not a good idea to let the damn cats nibble on the leaves... 
6. A bunch of us who ran (ran/walked, finished, whateva!) marathons last weekend are doing a fun little night trail run this Saturday called El Chupacabra de DFW. 10K of trails. In the dark. I can't think of a worse, more awesome idea for me three weeks before the "A" race of my lifetime!! Don't worry, we're walking (so we say now..) and I'll have my headlamp. It'll be awesome, I promise. My girls won't let anything happen to me. 
7. All three of my boys are going camping this weekend. The big one leaves with his troop per usual on Friday night, and hubby takes the little one for Cub Scout overnight trip on Saturday morning. That leaves me with about 24 hours ALONE, all by myself!! To do whatever I want!! So what will I be doing? See #4 and #6 above. There is also a very high probability of a nap there somewhere. 
8. Geez, it's harder than I thought to come up with thirteen things... 
9. I started looking at the photo tour of the Bandera 50K trail route. And someone on Twitter told me that it's pretty much considered the most difficult trail in Texas, with all the rocks and inclines and sh!t.  I really wish someone would have told me that before I opened my trap and decided to make it my first ultra... 
10. I get my quarterly bonus tomorrow. First thing in the morning, I'm going to sign up for Bandera before I change my mind and make myself a liar. I will then spend the next 2.5 months alternately freaking out and throwing up. 
11. I updated all my races and claimed some results on Athlinks.com the other day. Dang, I'm slow. And I'm not talking about just the races where I've paced new runners - I don't worry about pace for those. I'm talking about my marathon PR being a 5:13 and my half being a 2:09, but both of those were YEARS ago... Recent times are way, way, slower... My 5K time is picking up speed, though... 
12. I've lost enough inches that I'm wearing clothes that have a single digit on the tag. Haven't done that in a LONG time. But sadly, most of the weight has come off my chest and my a$$.  I didn't have any to lose in the chestal area to begin with, and my backside has long been considered my finest feature, so I'm kinda-sorta torn about that. I mean, I'm glad I'm smaller overall and schtuff, but give me a break! 
13. Despite all that, I still am not sure if I'm going to fit into my Texas flag shorts well enough to wear them for NYC. I'd rather not wear them at all than have 45,000 people say, "dude, did you see the fat chick in the Texas shorts?" I'm at a loss for what to wear if I don't go with those, though... 

Reviewing Marathon Times

Before we start, LOOK UP! Yes, I have a new banner pic. I went through my phone & FaceBook albums and downloaded all my pics of me and my running peeps and added them to my marathon and other race snapshots to make my new banner for this page. I love that I now I have pics of nearly everyone that I've run or raced with on my blog! I may or may not be printing a version of this for my office, too! But I have to wait until after NYC, since I know I have a lot more peeps to meet up with before then, like Heather and Erica, and some that I'm missing pix of (that would be Sarah, Sergio, Julie and Greg T). But, still, you get the idea:  I LOVE MY RUNNER FRIENDS!!

As I reflected on the latest 26.2 trek, I wondered how it ranked with my other marathon finishes. It certainly didn't feel as hard as Miracle Match, which I maintain to this day is the hardest race I've ever completed (the hills in Cameron Park KILLED me, and it was HOT and I wanted to DNF but I couldn't find anyone to give me a ride so I kept going). And I know it wasn't as hard as Cowtown 2009 which i had in essence blocked out of my consciousness since I really spent most of this year thinking I had only done seven  marathons. And I know it wasn't as hideous as Cowtown 2010, the infamous Crying-on-the-Curb Marathon. But how did it rank, really? Inquiring data-crunching nerds want to know.

So I dug through my old logs and verified with online sources and discovered that indeed, Tyler was a pretty decent showing for me. My worst finish times were indeed Cowtown 2010, Oklahoma City, Cowtown 2009 and Miracle Match. But what is surprising is that I remember Miracle Match as the absolute worst that I've ever felt and my time was a sub-six by a good 14 minutes, where Cowtown this year was a pitiful 6:19.

Conversely, I remember Marine Corps as the most amazing experience and I felt great beginning to end on that one (we won't talk about the fact that I nearly passed out waiting for the train back to Rebecca's house...). But my time there was only a few minutes faster than Tyler. I did stop and take an awful lot of pictures along the way (no, really, I took a LOT of pics!! sad that my blog from those days is gone, though, the race report was awesome, too!).  Turning the corner at Hain's Point and seeing these massive hands coming out of the ground was an absolutely stunning sight. I remember the waves of people at the bridge, and the absolute wall of sound of their cheering as we beat the cutoff.  I got to the finish and saw a Marine yelling at a wheelchair athlete straining to get up the hill to the finish line, telling him that he had come 26.1 miles and he was NOT going to let him stop now, while placing his foot behind the wheel so he wouldn't slide back down. I found Rebecca and Christi chatting at the finish like old pals, Rebecca in her bright pink wig, waiting to take care of me at the end.

And my PR race at White Rock in 2006? I remember that as probably the most miserable I've ever been, and I ran as fast I did in the last six miles because it was raining and cold and I just wanted to be done already.  I remember we were in the middle of an upgrade at work, and I spent the last two hours wondering if things were going well and my testers had shown up, and hoping they'd be done before I got there so I wouldn't have to stay at the office too long after the race. I remember hating that stupid lake and realizing that downtown Dallas looks an awful long way away from the Dolly Parton hills. I remember changing my socks in the car when I got to the office and thinking there were fewer things more glorious in the world than dry socks.

So it's striking to me that what makes a marathon memorable is not the time that it takes to travel the 26.2 miles but the experiences and the thoughts that go through your mind during that time.  As I said yesterday, the course was fairly sparse when it came to crowd support, so I had a lot of time to think out there. I thought about my training this year, about my family and how awesomely supportive they've been, about my training partners who were cranking out their first marathon in Chicago at the same exact time (fun weird psychic fact: Marci and I finished with 5:37 times -hundreds of miles apart. SPOOKY!), and about all the people in the banner above and how they've touched my life in ways they cannot imagine just by sharing this running thing with me at some point this year. Mostly, I thought about what lies ahead for me, on the streets of New York and beyond. And when I take all that into account, I have to say, this was a pretty good show, regardless of the time on the clock. And I can't wait for the next one.

My marathon times, from fastest to slowest, because I went through the trouble of gathering them in one spot, so I may as well share:

1. 2006 Dallas White Rock Marathon - 5:13:57
2. 2005 Dallas White Rock Marathon - 5:20:47
3. 2004 Dallas White Rock Marathon - 5:29:42
4. 2005 Marine Corps Marathon - 5:33
5. 2010 Tyler Marathon - 5:37:53
6. 2006 Miracle Match Marathon - 5:45:55
7. 2009 Cowtown Marathon  - 5:57:34
8. 2010 Oklahoma City Marathon - 6:06:26
9. 2010 Cowtown Marathon  - 6:19:26