Before going to Morocco on October 14th for CSC assignment, I had a marathon to run!
This past Saturday, Oct 1st. I ran the St. George Marathon in Southern Utah with my son Andy. It was my fifth marathon and his first. I ran it in 3:15 and Andy ran it in 3:18. In the pictures below Andy is in the blue tee-shirt and I am in the yellow tank top.
For Andy, it was his first marathon and 3:18 was a great time. He caught me at mile six, was ahead of me until mile 21. He hit the wall hard at mile 18 with massive cramps in both hamstrings and willed himself to the finish (more on cramps below). He learned how much more difficult it is to run a marathon than a half marathon. He did finish 21st in his age group
For me, I finished 12th in my age group, the same as last years race. My 3:15 time was 7 minutes slower than when I ran this race in 2015. Today’s race was 15 degrees hotter than last year (75 at finish). The heat caused my hamstrings to cramp like andy’s, but not as bad. They did not lock up like Andy’s did. I have also suffered from sore hamstrings all summer which have prevented me from doing intense speed workouts. The net is I purposely started targeted a slower time this year of 3:15 and I ended up there. With the heat, it was good I did not try to run a faster time.
My time today was 25 minutes under the qualifying time requirements for my age for the 2018 Boston Marathon. I ran Boston this past spring, and I am now qualified for the 2017 and 2018 Boston marathons which I will run. Boston is one of the top marathons in the world and I will now run three on a row (2016, 17 and 18). When I started running three years ago, had no idea how good I would become. I have been blessed by our Lord with running talent and it has made a big difference in my life.
Finally, very few fathers get to run a marathon with their son! I got to do that today. Awesome! Andy’s time for his first marathon was outstanding. He also has a lot of running talent and he will also qualifying for Boston at some point in the near future. Soon he will be faster than I am, which will be very cool. It is one of the things that every parent wants to see their child achieve.
larry clevenger 