It’s official. I’m going to enter my first marathon ever. Last Saturday I ran in the 20-mile pre-marathon race in Grand Rapids. The weather was great for running. It was in the high 50’s and low 60’s for the entire run. Earlier in the week they had predicted rain, but it never happened. It was overcast with a slight breeze. For me, that’s ideal. I just hope that the weather cooperates for the actual marathon. Running yesterday gave me a good chance to see what the general course would be like on race day. I wasn’t planning on running with anyone, but I ran into my brother-in-law’s neighbor just prior to the start of the race. We started out together and ended up running the entire race together. I’ve never run with anyone before but it seemed to work out pretty well for me. We talked throughout the race and before I knew it, we were done. I’ve never run 20 miles before, but after finishing the race, I felt great. I burned a total of 2800 calories. After I got home and took a shower, my wife, daughter and I went out to eat. We ate at a new Italian restaurant that just opened near our house. I ordered a Calzone, chicken wings and cheese breadsticks. I think I replaced the entire 2800 calories that I had just burned earlier in the day!
In case you’re wondering, the left-hand picture is what my current running shoes look like with a little over 1100 miles on them. They’ve stayed in remarkably good shape for that many miles. The right-hand picture shows one of the old shoes above one of the brand new ones. The soles have held up really well for that much mileage. The Asics brand has been a good shoe for me. I just switched to the new pair about 2 weeks ago and will have about 80-100 miles on them by race time. Hopefully, I can stay injury free for the next three weeks. The marathon is Sunday, October 18th. I’ll let you know how it goes.
