2014 Air Force Marathon

September 20, 2014 7:30 AM
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio

	Time	Pace	Division	Division Place	Gender Place	Overall Place	Bib #
Owen	3:40:31	8:25	M35-39	26/240	192/1,916	229/2,911	2280

Written by Owen:

Well, I am writing this blog entry two full months after the race, oh how time flies.  Oops.  The first thing that comes to my mind when I think back on this trip is the tension I felt, as I was waiting to hear if my BQ time from St. George would be good enough to get me in to the 2015 Boston Marathon.  Registration had just occurred, and I was awaiting the email to tell me if the cutoff would be above or below my time.

I tried not to let that ruin my trip, but every time my phone beeped with a new email notification, my heart skipped a beat.  We left Thursday night after the kids got out of school.  We were only driving part of the way, staying Thursday night in Charleston, West Virginia.

We arrived in WV late at night, but not too late for the kids to take a quick dip in the pool.

The McClary's are good friends of ours, they were our backyard neighbors for several years.  They recently moved to Columbus, Ohio.  They invited us to stay with them for this weekend.  That was awesome!  Malissa and I enjoyed visiting with Stefanie, we enjoyed seeing the kids all play together, and our kids had a blast  with their kids.

Friday we drove from Charleston, WV to Columbus, OH.  I dropped off Malissa and the kids at the McClary's, had lunch, but then had to get back on the road to drive to the expo, which was about 70 miles away in Dayton.

During the expo, Dave McGillivray was one of the guest speakers.  He is the race director for the Boston Marathon.  I made sure I was there during this time, and very much enjoyed his talk.  He is a very good speaker.  I couldn't believe that at the exact time that I was so nervous about getting into the Boston Marathon, that I was there talking with the race director himself.  I resisted the urge to bring that up, however.  The email never came while I was in Ohio, but I did receive the good news that I made it in by 12 seconds the next week.  Dave wrote a book, available on Amazon here.

Dave McGillivray

After I picked up my race packet, I drove back to Columbus, where Stefanie made an excellent pre-race dinner.  We hung out for a while, and I went to bed.  It was going to be a very early morning, since I had to drive so far to the bus pickup location, where they bused us to the starting line.

Malissa and Stefanie (Stefanie's husband was out of town)

The kids picked up right where they left off in Charlotte

Our pre-race dinner relaxation, awesome!

Just before the start.

Malissa, Stefanie, and the kids all came out to support me.

Here I am approaching mile 9.

Early start for the kids!

The race was a good race, really well organized, until just after mile 21.  The half-marathoners, who started an hour after us, merged with us at that point.  It was way too congested for that skinny road.  It is SO frustrating trying to pass people who are casually walking a half-marathon, while you're working your butt off at mile 22 of a marathon.  Just a really bad idea to merge there.

I was hurting, but not terribly.  I finished the race just 31 seconds slow of my goal time of 3:40.  I was trying to negative split, and was on pace to do it, but slowed down the last couple of miles.

After the race, we arranged to meet up with some friends of mine from 25 years ago when I lived in Utah.  I was just a kid, but Jim and Darlene were really good friends of my mom and Torre.  We had a really good visit, discussing old times, what we were up to, how their kids are, etc.  They are really wonderful people.




Here is video Malissa shot:


Here is my Garmin data:


Here is a video from the marathon:


I was browsing YouTube and just happened across this video that catches me twice, once facing the camera, and again returning with my back to the camera.