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2002 Tybee Marathon Race Report Tybee, Georgia I had another fun marathon Saturday, this time at the Tybee Marathon in Tybee Island, Ga.. Because of accidentally stopping my watch at one point (and not knowing it), I thought I was headed for a PR with 5 miles left. I ended up with a 3:38:15 (52nd out of 238), the third fastest of my 13 marathons and the fastest in more than four years. Nothing spectacular, really, but considering my training I was relatively happy with it. Unlike the four marathons I ran last year, I didn't walk at any point during the race. We really got lucky with the weather. It was very similar to one of the two years I ran the Shamrock Marathon (Virginia Beach, Va.): Temperatures were in the 80s as I drove in on Friday, but luckily cooled down to the high 40s/low 50s for race day. It did get windy at times (10-15 mph, according to the Savannah paper), but you've got to expect that with a marathon at the beach. (By the way, the Savannah paper provided incredible coverage with many stories. If you're interested its at savannahnow.com) Apparently, the women's winner had given birth FIVE months before the race. THAT is simply amazing!! While I give the race high marks, the pasta dinner was easily the worst I've attended at a marathon. It was promoted in the race materials, I don't think it was directly run by the race officials. I began talking to a couple that was in line ahead of me and they didn't even know there was a marathon this weekend and obviously weren't runners. It was at a small school and was a spaghetti dinner that I think benefited a civic group. The portions weren't that big and the spaghetti was hard, stringy and sticking together (geez, *I* could make better spaghetti than that!). I asked if I could get seconds and they said I'd have to wait until after the line went down (it never did).
Anyway, I still was hungry. So I visited a pizza place 50 feet from my motel (Cousin Vinny's) and got a calzone. Heck, when I saw a place called Cousin Vinny's, that should have been my first stop! :) On race day, I was relieved to see that the weather forecasts were correct: the week of hot, spring-like temperatures had given way to pleasant marathon conditions. There also is a 5K and a half-marathon (I like this MUCH better than marathons that also have relays.) All three races start at the same time on a four-lane road. The half-marathon and the marathon start together in one direction on one half of the road and the 5K starts, going in the OTHER direction, on the other half of the road. The course is, of course, is nothing but flat. The marathon is a double-loop course, so during the first half you see a lot of other runners but it kind of thins out for the second half. Other than the pasta dinner, I give Tybee high marks. It's not too big, the fees are fairly reasonable ($35) and every race official I spoke with was very nice. There were enough water stops and the volunteers were excellent. The quantity of crowd support wasn't great, but the quality of certainly was. There were built in pockets of supporters at the start/finish area since you go through there three times between starting and finishing. One of the trash bins after one water stop had a picture of Osama bin Laden on it, with the words "Trash Bin" on it. I did. I basically set out to run sub-8-minute miles and did that consistently until mile 16 when I ran an 8:13 and I began run in the range of 8:30 to 8:45 pretty much after that. Somewhere in there I obviously stopped my watch when I thought I was hitting the split button (restarting it later when hitting the split timer). I, of course, didn't know that I had done this. So, with 5 miles left, I looked at my watch and did the math: All I have to do is run sub-9s to get a PR. I was getting really pumped up about that. This feeling lasted for about 2 miles until I saw a big race-time clock that was reading a time about 8:30 later than what I had on my watch. At first, I rationalized that the race-time clock must be incorrect. Then I started to realize that it made no sense, given my splits, that I would be able to set a PR (my PR is 3:33:52 at the '97 Chicago Marathon). Then I realized I could clear this up quite easily but switching my watch to read the time of day. I then confirmed I really wasn't about to run a PR (short of an AMAZING kick.) That was a little demoralizing at that point in the marathon, but I kept plugging away just hoping to get the best time I could. After one turnaround at about mile 24 or so, we got that 15-20 mph wind right in our faces. THAT was a little tough. But my little "training run" for Boston is done, marathon No. 13 is in the books and I've now run marathons in eight states. Boston will give me nine and put me one state away from being able to join the two 50 state organizations. BTW, I saw several 50 and D.C. singlets at the start. Among the five or six runners I spoke with at length during the race was a woman from upstate New York who pretty much just came down to Tybee just to get another state in her pursuit of the 50 states. One of the more interesting runners I talked with was a guy who is in the Army and was running his second marathon. His first was the Berlin Marathon, which he ran while he was stationed there. He currently was stationed in Hawaii, making the 8 a.m. start like a 1 a.m. start for his body clock. Whoa! He had been a lot of places and had interesting stories (he thinks he'll be headed for peacekeeping duty somewhere in a couple of weeks.) We ran together for a long time and he got way ahead of me for a while. But he ended up having some problem with one of his feet and finished in more than four hours. Now, its on to (hopefully) quickly recovering from Tybee so that I can start training hard for Boston!! R.L.
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