Back to Little Rock again. I paced this marathon the first two or three years that they had it. Took a break from it to do some other races in early March. Two years ago I paced the 3:10 group and last year I raced in the Master's Elite Division and struggled so this year I thought I would return to pacing for the 3:05 group.
This has become our family's annual event that includes a hike up Pinnacle Mountain. Glad to say that we made it again this year only we did it Saturday before rather than wait until Sunday after the marathon. It was pretty cold but all of the kids and I made it to the top of Pinnacle!
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| Me in the kids at the top of Pinnacle Mountain! |
We also always visit the Clinton library. This year we took the guided tour which lasted about 90 minutes and it was very informative. The tour guide was one of the Arkansas Travelers (those who volunteered to campaign with Bill) back in 1992. He's known Clinton for 35 years since Clinton was AG of Arkansas. He was very interesting.
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| Madeline and I at the Clinton Library |
We also had time for some great food and swimming in the hotel indoor pool.
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| Pacing Tom Bib! |
Race morning couldn't be better. There was a hard frost and highs were expected to be in the 50's. Perfect marathon weather. As I got to the start line I met a couple of people who were hoping to stay run with me for the 3:05. They were really nice people and I hoped for the best for them. As we started out, I always worry about that first mile and being way off what my split is suppose to be. We were suppose to hit 7:03 and I worried that we might hit 6:30 or 7:30. As it happened, we hit 6:58. Perfect!
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| One of my favorite parts to the course - Historic Central High School - Love teaching about that! |
The other miles also ticked off without incident. It was sometime during these early miles that I realized that I had not done a road marathon since last year's Little Rock. Too busy doing trail ultras. We hit the half marathon mark with nearly 50 seconds in the bank. That was good because at Little Rock, you need that time for miles 14 - 17 which has some pretty good hills.
Of course as with any marathon, the hard part comes after mile 20 and that's when things get quiet and everyone just focuses on trying to get to the finish. Although none of my new friends made 3:05, after looking at the results, I saw that they were all very close behind me.
Afterwards we had a great time celebrating another great Little Rock Marathon!
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