Over the past few months, I’ve run a marathon and a couple half marathons. I had every intent of discussing them after each race, but life happens and time moves on – and then I get to write a post well after everything happened. So, here’s the recap of the 2019 Garmin Marathon.  

GARMIN MARATHON

The 2019 Garmin Marathon occurred on April 13 in Olathe. It started out at 35 degrees at race time. I had recently been running in 50 degree weather and was prepared to finally run in shorts and short sleeve t-shirt, but wasn’t going to happen on this day. 

Linda was there to cheer me on in the beginning and every few miles along the race route. It is awesome to have someone out there ringing a cowbell to cheer you on as you’re chugging away mile after mile. It brought a smile to my face and everyone around me always commented on having my own cheering section. It was also great having Linda there to hand off my gloves when I no longer needed them as it warmed up into the upper 40s; if only I could’ve switched into shorts by that time. 

I was looking for an improved time over my results over the last two years. I’d made some rookie mistakes in the first race and wasn’t quite trained as well as I’d hoped last year. My plan this was was to run with the pacer the whole way and not get dropped. 

I lined up with the 4:45 pacer and stayed with him all the way to the end. Running with Todd, my pacer, was the best choice I made all day. We had great conversations and learned of our shared interest in craft beer. Whenever we talked about beer, our pace would pick up and we’d have to back off the next mile. In fact, we gained so much time as we went along that I was able to finish in 4:43:19, almost 5 minutes faster than my best time achieved last year (was 4:48:41 last year and 4:52:54 two years ago). 

The best part of the day was having my sister-in-law, Elaine, join me on the public trail portion of the race at about mile 17. Thank you, Elaine, for keeping me engaged and encouraged all the way to the end.