I would like to thank everyone who hosted the Saturday long training runs. As with most worthwhile endeavors, you never can do accomplish them without a lot of help. I never could have prepared myself to run this race without Fast
Tracks. I never did actually run with any of you since my pace was somewhat on the slow side but the water stops and post run goodies were essential to my training along with your good advise and encouragement. My goal for the race was always to finish. I set a reasonable finish time of 5:30:00 so I had some pacing guidelines to avoid that first timer mistake of
getting out too fast and then hitting the wall. I maintained a slower pace of 12:50 up to about Falls River Bridge or mile 18. Maybe the cold weather and wind had something to do with it or perhaps my inexperience caused me to be too
cautious however, I did slow down as the final miles passed but I ran the entire race with the exception of the last 1/3 of that steep mother coming up from Sweet Briar towards the Fast Tracks water stop around mile 9. It reminded me of
my 20 miler hosted by Ethel out in Phoenixville.The saying that the last six miles of a marathon are half the race are true. It
took all of the mental techniques I practiced to keep me moving forward but I passed a lot of people on Kelly Drive on the way to the finish.I'm not sure where it came from but as I was coming up the rise towards the finish line and heard the the crowd and saw the banner above the finish line, I managed to summon a full sprint from someplace. I was gassed but looked good
for the camera.Anyway, I ran 5:53:25. Slightly slower than my goal but satisfied that I trained hard, ran hard and never quit. That's what I learned from my running club. Thanks for all your help.
