Albany Marathon

The Albany Marathon was a blast.



I've been training since Aug 2007 to finish this race. I joined the Albany Run Walk group and that made doing marathons possible. It was so cool to run the race with the same group of guys that I had been training with all year.

The course was very flat and there were lots of people out to give us runners support. All the water stops were themed and they had several bands out on the course to help keep you going.

I hit the half feeling good. I remember looking at the time clock and seeing 2 hours & 9 min. After that is when things got tuff. I began to start running low on Gas. I had ran about 73 miles in Jan and a total of 2 miles in Feb.

Luckily for me I had my cheering squad a few miles up the road. Sarah Jane with the help of her cousins made me signs that said Go Daddy! They also took side walk chalk and color the way for me.

When I got to them Sarah Jane came running out and ran to the corner with me. She's a good runner! I didn't find out till later that she cried after I left because she want to keep running with her Daddy.

A round mile 24 the pace began to slow down a lot. It was a challenge to keep doing the 3:1 run/walk ratio. You don't know how glad I was that I had Chuck & Amy to help get me to the finish.

I completed the race in 4:45:05. Not the timed I hoped for but it was a PR. I crossed the finish line and was very surprised to see that Sarah Jane was there. I was so glad to share that moment with her. I hope that one did she can learn from me the importance of having active life style.

One side note. I was born on 12/30/1981. So, when you do the math. On the day of my first Marathon I was exactly 26.2 years old. How Cool!