On marathons, camaraderie and post-race food

I have been following Brian Reynolds on instagram for a while now. He's a double amputee distance runner who attempted to break the 3 hour barrier at the Chicago marathon yesterday. Given his current PR before the marathon of 3:03:35, I was sure he was going to make it and become the first American amputee to break 3.

He was running a consistent 6:45-minute mile pace and on track to his goal when he fell. Then suffering a concussion. At mile 22.

The crazy thing is, despite the concussion and nausea and dizziness, Reynolds still finished the marathon. In 3:03:22.

I am so grateful for @mikewardian, Phil, and @stanbluejay for coming out to help pace me. I spent the last four miles fighting to stay upright through dizziness and blacking out. These guys were my rocks and helps pull me through thick and thin. I wouldn't have made it without them!

Photographed by @duffys.lens
If this camaraderie and determination doesn't melt your heart, I don't know what does.

I don't have an incredible stories like this one, but most of my humble races have been wonderful experience. The most recent was the Global Energy Run #ger2018 that I ran with the coolest people I know about two weeks ago, a few days after I returned from California. I don't know how I was able to persuade them to get up at 6a on a rainy Saturday to run this race with me, but look how happy we were to complete it:

Guess who was excited to find some food:

(In that box was only my jacket, a few tiny chocolate chip muffins and half a dozen bagels.) I do have to comment that Tulsa post-race food is better than Philly. Depending on the race, but we would have beer, protein milkshake, coffee, pizzas, pasta, sandwiches and even banana pancakes. In Philly, @dhimmel waited in line for 15 minutes for a sad half grilled cheese sandwich (not pictured). Nonetheless, I enjoyed being companied by my wonderful running partners before, during and after the race. Strava obviously knew who I was running with:

And check out that negative split!!! Overall, I ran this race at approximately the same effort at the Tulsa 15K at the end of October last year, which is a great surprise to me! Oh and I placed 3rd in my age group, which is an even greater surprise! I know we still have a lot of work to do, but a sub-4 marathon seems so possible now.

Philly has been waking up later and later, but as usual, I'm psyched for 7.5 miles at 6:30a tomorrow!

À plus tard!