Well, the 9th annual OKC marathon has come and gone and I'm left with frustration in it's wake. I knew the day was going to present some obstacles with the humidity and winds and so I did what I could to prevent against those problems but it didn't seem to matter. The first half pace felt really doable, but I sort of felt myself getting a little warm, despite dumping water over my head at every water stop. I could sense a certain amount of futility in the morning's endeavor. Jordan looked good, particularly heading back into the wind along Lake Hefner, which was the last good look I got of him. I want to check out this asthma issue that seems to plague my marathon races, but as with any bad race I mainly let my mood sour my racing vigor. I wonder what would have happened if I would have actually stopped, stretched, and thrown up the excess fluids that seemed to be going nowhere in my stomach. I was kind of afraid that I might stiffen but I don't think my legs ever really got that beat up. Coming back up Classen, the wind was aggressive but not as bad as it could have been as there where hundreds of half marathon walkers buffeting the wind (and the water stations). Skolnick ran with me towards the finish and it was a little tough fighting traffic through the throngs, but at this point I wasn't bitter about losing time, I just wanted to get to the finish. As I turned onto Broadway, my buddy Ben was jogging in with some friends and so he elected to spur me across the finish mat.
It's becoming too common for me to visit the med tent after these things, but I managed to go both light headed and nauseous, and upon vomitting, I was hauled in by Adam Cohen and mainly just monitored by the nurses for a few minutes, with some albuterol, and cold fluids. The body is strange though, the cold water felt great on my head but I started to shiver alot and decided I needed to get out and find the rest of the gang.
There were alot of tired and frustrated folks in our group, but Kat, Stu, and Jordan all seemed particularly buoyed by there performances. I think they were able to stay positive throughout the race, which is huge in a marathon and in some cases surprising things can happen. Unfortunately Jenny Graef was running really well in the lead, but fainted at 22 miles and was unable to recover. I want to see if the weather was particularly rough on thee number of finishers as it sounded like about half the marathoners made it to the end, a stat that seems kind of low. I'll probably throw a few photos on in the next post and glean the more positive facts about the race.
It's becoming too common for me to visit the med tent after these things, but I managed to go both light headed and nauseous, and upon vomitting, I was hauled in by Adam Cohen and mainly just monitored by the nurses for a few minutes, with some albuterol, and cold fluids. The body is strange though, the cold water felt great on my head but I started to shiver alot and decided I needed to get out and find the rest of the gang.
There were alot of tired and frustrated folks in our group, but Kat, Stu, and Jordan all seemed particularly buoyed by there performances. I think they were able to stay positive throughout the race, which is huge in a marathon and in some cases surprising things can happen. Unfortunately Jenny Graef was running really well in the lead, but fainted at 22 miles and was unable to recover. I want to see if the weather was particularly rough on thee number of finishers as it sounded like about half the marathoners made it to the end, a stat that seems kind of low. I'll probably throw a few photos on in the next post and glean the more positive facts about the race.
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