Do you ever feel like this? I know I often do.
To those of you who I’ve not responded to, I ask for your forgiveness. And I offer that same forgiveness to those of you who have not responded to me. It’s ok. Carry on. I still love ya.
That felt rather good. Tell you what? Pass this on!
That’s what I was thinking a week after Red Deer. But the coach has other plans …something about a proper recovery?
I took one week off after the marathon and had my first run today. A nice 35 minute jog around the river valley. I felt good with one little niggle in my right foot that went away 15 minutes into the run.
And the instructions from Andrew are to do more of the same for another few weeks. “Just jog around” he says. And I think, “Who am I to argue with a guy who got me to a PR?”.
So, I’m taking it easy and healing up. Apparently, I’m going to need the rest because Andrew’s taking my training up a notch for the two months prior to Regina.
Cool.
I’m going to wrap up the Red Deer Experience with a few thank you’s.
Coach Andrew: Holy cow! You da man! Somebody give this guy a hat that says GENIUS on it. Thanks for your patient and thorough guidance this past several months Andrew. I can’t wait for the next kick at the marathon!
Aaron and Tanya: You know what these great friends of mine did? They got up early with their one-year old, drove 90 minutes and came to see me finish. Aaron brought cigars so, upon returning home it was beers and cigars to celebrate. Thanks bud!!
My Family: Lori and the kids came along for the trip and it was really fun! We stayed in a hotel with a swimming pool and the kids were so excited about the whole thing. Cool.
You: So many people have rooted for me while training for this marathon. And you’ve left such wonderful comments. You rock.
*sniff*
My favorite one first. It’s pretty far into the marathon – I’d say about 30k in and I think I look decent. One thing you might note is that there’s no one around me. The race was pretty spread out at this point. I’d say that I was passing runners every five minutes or so at this point.
Now, I’ll switch to early on in the race. I remember this spot of the race pretty clearly. I’d say it was at about 5k so it was pretty soon after I’d kicked into race pace. I remember it because of #122 I’m passing in the picture. See her gel flasks? She had two more on her back side and I remember thinking how differently we were approaching the whole fueling thing – her with four flasks of gel, and me with nothing. I looked up her number and she’s not in the results so it looks like she might have DNF’d.
These next two pics are at about 35k. I remember because I passed that walker (there were very few people out there!) and then spotted the photographer moments later. I was really digging deep here. Things were starting to hurt.
And, of course, the finish photo. Don’t you think I look just slightly relieved to be finishing? 
