A First Marathon Story; conclusion.
Runners, have I got a treat for you!
A well know company has kindly agreed to supply gifts to some lucky runners during the month of June. Each week a winner will be picked. During that month I will be featuring a contest that you will all want to enter! Think of yummy food and think of food that we, as runners, love and that will point you in the right direction . The contest starts June 3 and runs for the entire month. There will be multiple winners!
UPDATE: The prizes will be lovely gift baskets! More info next week!
Just a reminder that we have a new sweepstakes! It ends June 30. Go here to enter and for the rules. Good Luck!
This is a 2 part story and appears in my book, Running Forward ~ Looking Back.
A Lesson Learned
Part 2
"By mile 18, I was really beginning to worry about the dreaded wall that I would hit at mile 20. Still, I kept plugging away, as I became more aware every minute, of a nagging stiffness in my neck muscles. I was hurting and was starting to shuffle a bit.
Anyway, the 20-mile marker came up and I was amazed to see I was within 3 seconds of being exactly on pace! I thought to myself, I only have a 10-K to go, so I'll just bite the bullet and do it. My form was getting sloppy. I figured I'd have to concentrate on my running form more and not waste energy talking to my running mates. I figured that if I just picked up my pace a little and concentrated, I'd be ahead of the game. That is exactly what I did.
"A strange thing occurred about this time. Though I was working harder than ever and running faster, the clock had me at 9 minutes 30 seconds for the next mile. I honestly thought the clock was wrong. As I struggled, each mile got tougher and tougher.
"At 22 miles I was really hurting everywhere, not just my feet, but even my back and kidneys. I hurt all over! The last thing on my mind was the penguin. On and on I went and after a while I saw the penguin up ahead of me about one hundred yards or so. This course was an 'out and back' and had a fair amount of shade along parts of it. As bad as I felt, my pride wanted to catch this man and sort of reel him in. I planned to silently slip by him, just as he had slipped past me earlier.
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