Richmond Marathon Report

Flew out of Nashville early on Fri. via Atlanta to Richmond. It was a dreary, rainy day in Richmond on Friday and a little cool. Met up with Kelly Davis and his wife, Sarah their son, Samuel at the Expo at 11a. Picked up all the race stuff, a couple of PowerGels and then headed to a nice little Italian restaurant for pasta. It was a nice meal at a good price and then we headed to theDavis' home. Kelly is a ministry buddy of mine who works for the IMB and had graciously invited me to stay with them on Fri. night.

Pretty much laid around most of the afternoon and then we headed out to PizzaFusion for a little more carbo loading. I dined on the organic 4 cheese, sun-dried tomato pizza w/ wheat crust. It was very good for sure. We headed back to the house in the rain and watched some football and then headed to bed.

Morning came early and I ate a bagel and drank plenty of water and gatorade. Kelly was running the half-marathon and his race started at 730a so we headed out about 615a. Found a place to park just up the street from the finish line and he took off for the start which was about 4-5 blocks over. I hung out in the car for awhile and then headed toward the start a little after 7 looking for a hotel lobby w/ a bathroom. Found a nice Hilton Garden Inn and hung out there until about 745a and then found my way to the start.

The race started promptly at 8a and I settled in w/ the crowd around me and finished w/ a 3:44:22. All in all, a pretty good race. I never pushed myself too hard, enjoyed the beautiful fall scenery and the course runs through beautiful neighborhoods, along the greatly swollen James River, back through town and VCU and out through another couple of nice neighborhoods and then finishes on a big downhill back in town.

A good day with good weather, misty and 50s at the start and a north wind of about 10mph. It did warm up some but about the time it got too warm, we turned back into the north wind and cooled back down.

Blessed to be able to run. Thankful for the ability to get out and exercise. Thankful for my family allowing me to go run these crazy things too. If you are a runner, I would encourage you to train for and run Richmond sometime. Good course, organized well and very scenic.

On a sad running note - just went online to register for Boston and it is closed. Hard to believe it filled 5 months out. Looks like my qualification may go unused again this year. Think of the money I will save however. :-)