OKC Marathon - A Run to Remember

At the end of April I ran the OKC Marathon.  This is a great race.  The timing was good and the trip short, so I decided to run it.  I was very pleasantly surprised.  The whole city comes out for this and spirits are high.  The run is a memorial to those who lost their lives in the OKC bombing in 1995.  You have to go walk through the memorial before the run.  It gives great meaning to the event.

If I had it to do over, I would have opted for the half.  The route is a long series of very easy hills.  After 20 miles, it got a little old. 

While I set a personal best at 3:42, I am still 12 minutes away from my 3:30 finish goal to qualify for Boston.  A couple of factors came into play.  First, it was but my real issue was bodily.  I started slowing down at about 16 and by 19 I was dragging due.  Knowing I was about to lose it, I searched for a porta-potty.  Finding one open at 23, I have never so thoroughly vacated so quickly.  My pace went up immediately by 45 seconds.  Lesson?  When you need to go, just go.

The real issue here was over-carbing the days before.  Some would argue that this is not possible.  What are you going to do?  You know you need more glycogen stores, but you can not load any more.  I try to answer this in my next segment.  In the meantime, consider the OKC Marathon.