Craig Butler sent me the following account of his recent marathon, the 2nd in three weeks. So, here it is, in his own words:
Mark--I like to see my name in print and reinforce my endurance prowess over my peers. Please post this on your blog and don't change a word unless it serves to improve the perception of my performance! After running the hilly Penna. Potter County marathon three weeks ago with an nexpected time of 3:23 (2 minutes shy of a boston qualifying time (BQ)), I ulled over the idea of finding another marathon to quickly see if I could run a Q versus waiting to run one in the fall. I found the Charlevoix marathon in ichigan - A short trip up-lake from Traverse City. With only three weeks of ecovery and training in between I was hopeful but unsure about having enough ime to recover and train, but signed up. Tammi, Hanna and I drove up on Thursday nite and Friday to give it a shot. It s a relatively small marathon with about 1000 people running the marathon, alf, and 10K. About 250 people ran the marathon. It is a real nice course run n bike trails along Lake Michigan. Saturday at 5AM, it was pouring rain when I woke up. Thankfully, it stopped round 6:30. Temps were around 62 - 70 and humid. Not too bad. We started at 7 and I set a pace of 7:30. This would give me a minute or two to se when I hit the proverbial wall around mile 22 or so and pace tends to slow nd make the 3:20 cutoff for my BQ age group. I was on or ahead of my pace time and felt OK - not great, but OK - through the irst 10 miles. There was one hill at 10 that was unexpected but not a huge ssue. At the half, I clocked a 1:37. About 3 minutes ahead of schedule but I as wary of getting too cocky because I knew there was a hill at mile 25 and elt the first, and therefore the last three miles on this out/back course were own/uphill. I worked on managing my pace and drinking fluids through mile 22. ere I finally started to let myself start think I would make the 3:20 time as I ad kept my pace and was feeling OK. I passed several runners in the last three iles that I let go in the beginning and hit the hill at 25 without losing to uch time. I crossed the finish line with a 3:16 (7:24 pace). I made it. I am retty happy. It has taken me 8 years to run a time like this and considering y first marathon I ran a 5:04, I feel pretty good. Perhaps with some more raining I could do 3:10???? hmmmm fun to dream, but I need a break. What's next....? I have a few trail runs planned for later this year and ossibly a 50 miler in October. I plan to get on my bike more and ride with riends and family. I'm itching to climb some hills.
3 Comments
Ryan
6/29/2010 04:46:37 am
Way to go!
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Jamie
6/29/2010 05:23:26 am
Congrats on another great run. You're setting the bar pretty high for me :D
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Cindy
6/30/2010 09:29:43 am
Great job; very impressive!
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