My BQ Cleveland Marathon, May 16, 2010

The Cleveland Marathon is not my favorite marathon even after it was my pr last year and now again this year and also my Boston qualifying marathon. BUT this worked out perfect this year to run it again with my 2 50k's in March and my 2 half marathons in April and the Illinois marathon 2 weeks before. This is the best trained and prepared I have been for any marathon yet and I guess it showed.
I got my normal marathon amount of sleep the night before waking up about 2:45 am and finally getting out of bed about 3:45, I just can't sleep the night before. I got out of bed and did something I've never done on race morning, I went for a 1 mile run at 4am to get things moving, I also ran 4 miles with JN the day before. Note for next year, leave by 5:15 to get into parking at the Galleria.We arrived with less time than last year and got a group picture but missed quite a few people. My plan was to run with Dan H. for this marathon knowing that if I could stay with him I would be in great shape and it worked. We ran well into mile 21 together before I told him to go, we also ran most of it with a lady named Michele Sollenberger which stayed with me to about mile 24. I needed to run this at a 7:38 pace and we were running in the 7:20 range for a long time which built a nice little cushion, we crossed the half way point at 1:36 :05 and the 30k (18.6 miles) at 2:17, where I was starting to get a bit tired and a little soreness in the calf and hamstrings, but I still ran and felt good til about mile 24 + where I saw Marsha and I was getting slower but still moving decent. Jeannine was supposed to meet me at mile 24 but didn't meet me til mile 25 and of course there is when my hamstring started to act up when ever she tried to get me to speed up, it didn't work but having her there to run with kept me from walking longer than I would have, I walked through a water stop and she is trying to get me moving and tells me if I don't walk again til the finish that she will run any morning for the next month at 5 am. We'll see about that but I made it in at 3:17:45 with time to spare, Dan ended up with an incredible 3:13. It was a great day for all of us, Marsha ran the half just 1 minute shy of her pr and just 2 weeks after her 2nd best marathon, Charles finally broke the 4 hour mark with a 3:57, Tara had a pr in her half at 2:20, Dan Daubner ran his 1st marathon in 3:55, Janet pr'd by 10 minutes with a 4:12, Connie ran a 3:12, Debbie Sheel ran a pr at 3:31 and some others. Now I just need to get Marsha to qualify so we can run Boston together next year.