I had a one-hour massage yesterday at Total Health. Total Health is "a complete medical fitness center and physical rehabilitation program" as well as a decent gym. The facilities are nice, clean, and new (especially compared to my current gym) and the people are nice.

Holly was my massage therapist. She asked me why I was there and when I told her it was cycling she knew just what to do. My lower back was hurting, and she found my lower back and hip flexors very tight. Getting those muscles to release was uncomfortable and was pretty sore the rest of the day and this morning, but I can tell it's better. It still hurts but the tension is gone. I still tossed and turned all night and woke up several times but I feel rested this morning for the first time in a few weeks.

I am going to change my gym membership to Total Health from the YMCA. It's very close to work and doesn't smell funny. I'll have to quit swimming, but the city 50m pool is almost open and I'll make do there.

http://www.stillwater-medical.org/th/Default.aspx?tabid=130

I ran the half distance of the 2010 Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon.

Packet Pickup
I went down to Oklahoma City to pick up my packet at the expo on Friday night. I thought I had plenty of time, but there was some event that night and the whole downtown-bricktown area was packed. I had to park by the library and art museum, and run several blocks to the Cox Convention Center. I made it into the building at about 7:50, found my bib, picked up 5 other bibs for other people (my wife & daughter did the 5K), and went into the expo to find the packets. I picked up all the bags of stuff and had time to look at one booth before they started turning off the lights. So I just made it.

Pre-Race
We stayed at a Hilton Homesuites hotel on west Reno, a few miles west of downtown OKC. It was nice, although hotels.com kept selling rooms that they didn't have and they had to deal with that. They also gave us a smoking room but the smell was pretty mild.

I needed a way to carry gels and my phone(/camera/mp3 player) so I grabbed an Amphipod belt at the expo. I really liked my Amphipod clip-on pocket (temporarily lost), and this works just as well. It has a nice wide belt and padding on the pocket. I had no problem fitting an iPhone, ear buds, car key, and four gels, and I really didn't notice it was there. I also hung my bib number on the the front with a piece of stretchy shock cord.

On race morning we arrived downtown around 6:00 (start was at 6:30) and in the great sea of cars looking for parking I just used one of the lots labeled on the marathon map and found a spot a block away from the bombing memorial. I said goodbye to my family at the 5K gate and walked a couple of blocks around to the end of the marathon line.

The Race
I started near the 12:00 min pace area and it took 15-16 minutes to cross the start line. I was maybe 80% through the crowd. We were running by the time we crossed the line so I think most people had lined up where they were supposed to start.

For ~23,000 we were spread out enough that it did not seem crowded once we started running.

The half course had around nine official water stops. I walked through each one of these and usually drank two cups of water, or water + sports drink when available. Most of them had pretzels, and I ate a couple of these each time. One station on the half course (and another on the full course) had Gu. They had a few portable toilets in the first few miles, but I don't remember seeing them after about mile 4 or 5. The aid stations were all loaded with volunteers.

There were lots of unofficial aid stations along the course, a few live bands playing, lots of music, lots of people with signs, lots of kids, people cheering, people handing out candy bar pieces, lots of high-fives, all sorts of stuff. I don't recall any section of the entire half marathon that was empty. People really came out to cheer on the runners. It was very impressive.

Overall I stayed pretty constant the whole race. I had my first gel at 1:00 hour and more or less one every half hour after that. I had some minor-to-medium runners highs, and no bonking. I took it easy the whole race, and didn't try to push the pace until after mile 10. I negatively split the race, running the 2nd half about one minute per mile faster than the first half. Walking through all the water stops dropped my average pace by one minute per mile. I listened to music for about the last half. I can't recall any other strategies or tactics that worked or did not work.

I did the Six Hour Snake Run yesterday. It was cold and wet and a lot of fun, but I should have done the three hour version because that's how long I stayed there.

Pre-Race

I waited until the last day to preregister so they only had medium shirts available.

Race Morning

A blizzard blew in during the night and it continued to snow all day. I left home around 6:30 and it took a little over two hours to drive the eighty miles to the park. The snow was pretty heavy and the roads very slick at times.

I made it to the parking lot and found it empty. I knew the starting line was near the old parking lot at the top of the hill, and one of the other lost people there said a bunch of cars were parked up there. I drove up the hill and found a place to pull off in the middle of a long line of cars parking in the ditch.

I got out and wandered around for a bit until I found a tent, and then checked in. They didn't have a packet for me so I filled out a new form and they gave me a number. They had a propane heater in the tent so I stayed in there for a minute or two to warm up. Then I went back to the car to wait for the start time.

Clothing/Gear

I wore my (Brooks) TATUR tank, a tech t-shirt, and a Duofold long sleeve polypropylene shirt, compression shorts and Nike warm-up pants, Jobst knee-high compression socks under wool socks, Adidas mesh trail shoes, my tech hat from last year's Spring Fever tri, a Gore-Tex lined wool sock hat, and wool fingerless gloves with removable mittens. I had my Garmin watch, heart strap, and foot pod, and I kept a Hammer gel and car key in an Amphipod Micropack Explorer. All this kept me mostly warm while I was running. The air temperature was probably around or above freezing, and the course was very wet and muddy.

My feet were wet almost from the start and cold. I'm not sure what I could have done about that, maybe the compression socks had too much compression in the feet and I wasn't getting good blood flow. Later when changed I had mud all the way through both socks and on my feet.

The Race

Around 9:00 everyone gathered at the start and they sent us off. I fell into a nice easy jog with a bunch of other runners, around 12:00-13:00 minute pace. The course was two miles long in a "P" shape, with an aid station at the start and another at the end, which was also in the middle of the "P". So each loop passed the second aid station three times. They had water and gatorade, bananas, nuts, jelly beans, and chips.

The course was a real mess. Large sections were ankle deep mud or under water. It was not terribly slippery, though. The snow was almost sleet at times. It stung my face and bounced off at times.

I finished the first loop a few minutes before 10:00, fifteen minutes slower than I planned but not bad considering the mud. I stayed around the aid station ten minutes and then headed back out. The second loop was stickier than the first. My shoes started to stick in the muck now and then, and my toes went back and forth between numb and pained. I quit running through the big mud holes, trying to save my legs.

An Early End

I finished the second loop around 11:30. I had some food and was getting ready to go out for #3 when someone asked for help getting a car out of the ditch. Several of us went out to the road and after a little work we got it up on the road. That's when I noticed that the road was in really bad shape, several cars were stuck and couldn't get out, and some of the people hanging around the aid station were pretty drunk.

A second car (Dodge Caliber AWD) needed help so I got my tow strap and hooked it to a woman with a 4x4. She couldn't pull it out without pulling herself into another car. A couple of other cars stopped in the road (it was blocked) and got out to help. I think one of those guys was also drunk. He wanted to hook his truck to the other truck. I told the car owner to call a wrecker, and I told the (helpful, sober) truck driver she should just leave before something stupid happened.

She left, too bad - nice lady with common sense, and the moving van (why was a moving van on Elwood Ave during a blizzard???) wanted to try. So the drunk guy crawled past the big steel bumper and hooked my tow strap to the frame of the van. I don't know what was in the van but it must have been heavy because he pulled the Caliber another couple of feet. Unfortunately the driver had his wheels cut and the front of the car got into the fence. So I told him again he needed a wrecker and I took my tow strap so no one would get hurt with it - I continually had to tell people to not hang on the tow strap while it was tight. We could have gotten it out going forward but there was no safe anchor on the front of the car.

I went back to my car - sure that it was stuck as bad as the others - and watched the person behind me pull out without any problems. So I got in and tried, and got right up on the road. I decided the whole thing was falling apart and I didn't want to be stuck in the middle of it so I left.

I drove back through just before the 3:00 cut-off and the road looked a lot better. Several cars were still there so I guess I could have kept running. I could have done another loop without hurting myself, and probably another before the cutoff if I really pushed it. But as sore as I am today (legs, joints, and a big knot in my shoulder) I think I did okay.