National Guard Marathon

I was fortunate enough to have the National Guard fund a trip to the Lincoln Marathon earlier this month. The National Guard uses this marathon as a recruiting tool and teams from all 50 states took turns manning the recruiting booth at the marathon expo.

This was my second marathon and I was expecting to get around the same time since I did not train as much and missed a full week of training due to strep throat a few weeks before. However, I learned a lot from my previous marathon, which helped me tremendously. First, I ate a lot more for breakfast to provide me more energy. Second, I started nice and slow with my first four miles averaging 8 minutes a mile. My first marathon, I started out too fast and was constantly being passed on the last half of the marathon. This time I followed what my body was telling me and instead of being passed in the last half, I was doing the passing. My last 10K ended up being faster than my first 10K. I was surprised at how good I felt. I did not start hurting until the last couple of miles. I finished with a time of 3:18:21, which was 23 minutes faster than my first marathon. It was an average pace of 7:35 a mile.

Thank you Lona for the support and for being without her husband for the weekend. I know it wasn't easy.

Finishing at the 50 yard line of the Nebraska Cornhusker stadium was a real treat. They had our finish up on the jumbotron so you could watch yourself as you were finishing.