Great marathon on Sunday 3/7/10 in Little Rock, Arkansas. I ended up staying in a hotel that was right by the start, I had not realized this when I booked it. It was nice to have less stress the morning of the race. I felt off all weekend with a persistent headache, I even pondered not starting. But I took a nap, went to the pasta dinner and got excited all over again. Woke up at my normal East Coast time but laid in bed for a while. Got some coffee in the lobby, checked on the race start, then again as it seemed too late to really be starting at 8am, then finally headed out to line up.
The start was a combo of the relay, half and full marathoners which can sometimes spell trouble, but spreading people out in the corrals helped a ton. Good aid stations, sometimes they seemed really frequent and some sections later in the race they felt really spread out. I did some bad math again at mile 17 and figured out in error that I had ONLY 8.2 miles left (I really had 9.2 left at that point), so if you can imagine my disappointment at mile 18 (sigh, I had done this previously at the Richmond Marathon as well). Oh well. I ran with one handheld water bottle to practice running with it and to make sure I stayed up on my hydration with the warmer temps (60's) predicted. I was coated in salt at the end but I never got too warm so as to upset the GI tract. I felt really, really bad for the first hour after I finished, but once I ate some pretzels I felt better. The main hiccup was all the Delta flights that were canceled or delayed after the race, leading to some sprinting through Atlanta's airport to catch our connecting flight (me and 5 others). One guy even ran up the escalator which I could not still do, I could run the flats but had to walk the ups. We made the connection but it still left almost 30 minutes late.
The course was relatively scenic and ran past 4 major landmarks in Little Rock that I recognized (maybe some more that I didn't know about). In order we ran past the Clinton Presidential Library, Capital Building, Governor's Mansion (he was out cheering the runners in jeans and a sweatshirt, very classy for him to make a showing), then the Little Rock Central High School and nearby historic gas station.
A great run but I won't be back, trying do the 50 states, maybe on my second go around with the 50 states...back to work on Tuesday.
