10 Hour 2008 PR!

Do I look happy or what?

Bob Dolphin working on 500 marathons

Michelle and Jessica at the finish

Finish Line and Soup Kitchen

Jenny you need to touch up those gray hairs!


Photographic trickery to make Steve look like he's moving fast.

Rich Walter - photography, race support.

That's right folks, 10 hours! Was it a 100K, 50K, Marathon, what..... Well I suppose the Pigtails Marathon I ran yesterday lead up to my 2008 PR but it was not where I set my new 2008 record. Last night I got 10 hours of sleep! Woo Hoo! I don't have sleeping problems and usually I just lay down close my eyes and BOOM, I'm catching Z's. I don't think I've gotten over 7.5 hours of sleep over a given night all year but last night beat that PR by 2.5 hours!

I need to take the Facebook age test again because I think I must be in my teenage years again!

OK, so much for the silly nights sleep. Yesterday I ran Pigtails Marathon in Renton WA. I had not planed on running this race but the Dumb Ass 50K scheduled for today was cancelled due to the potential for high winds. Pigtails is an out and back that goes along the Cedar River Trail which I believe is an old RR right of way. Van Phan is the RD and offers both 50K and Marathon distance. Race entry consists of two cans of soup from each runner that is donated to a local food bank. Actually some of the soup is also cooked up for the runners at the finish.

Van is a superheroine distance runner who beats me on a regular basis. She rallied a group of local runners to volunteer at the aid stations and actually check on us along the way. Shawn McTaggart, tc, Jess Mullen, and King Arthur were on the job. All of these folks deserve a standing O for their willingness to brave the 21 degree F temperatures for nearly 8 hours.

I've run this trail before in freezing conditions and found the bridges that cross roads to be very slippery. I don't own Yak Traks so I installed 3/8" sheet metal screws in the bottom lugs of both Michelle's and my shoes. The snow was about two inches deep on the first 6 miles and then got up to about four inches as we ran east. It was similar to running in sand and I'm glad that I put the screws in my shoes because otherwise I think I would have slipped around a bit more as I pushed off.

I ran the first 16 miles with a group of Puyallup runners, Linda, Rob (Rattler), Jenny, and Steve. I wore my pack with a hydration bladder and had issues with my bite valve and hose freezing. I discovered that taking a sip about every 5 min. would keep it flowing. Last night Michelle told me she overheard tc suggesting to someone that they blow air into the bite valve to get the water out of the hose and valve to prevent freezing. I need to try that next time. The hydration bladder beats holding water bottles that tend to freeze up and suck all the heat from your hands. I picked up my pace at mile 16 and finished with a 4:45:53. Yep, that's slow for me but we had a lot of fun talking and I stopped an took a lot of pictures along the way. Speaking of pictures, Linda's husband Rich was on his Mt. bike taking pictures as well plus providing and support folks needed. I'll share some of his too once he downloads them. Rich has a great eye for photography and the lighting conditions and weather should have provided for some great shots with the equipment he has. He's a better biker than me because history proves that I would have ended up with the front tire instantly slipping out from under me and ending up hip first on the pavement.

Many of the runners with long hair or beards iced up from the moisture as they exhaled. It was a beautiful morning with some sun breaks in the first half before the snow clouds started rolling in for a continuation of SNOWBOMINATION 2008. For those of you who have not been in the Seattle area during a snow period you must understand that the world comes to a halt and our local news teams go into a paranoid reaction that I can only imagine is some sort of practice run in case a nuclear device goes off near town.

Michelle ran the Pigtails marathon with Jessica Williams of our Y-Run Club. Jessica is a runner that started running with our club when we offered a couch to 5K program two years ago. She actually was the only participant that stuck with it and ran the Y Run for Kids 5K race in Tacoma after the C25K training. Yesterday Jessica qualified as a Marathon Maniac having completed her 4th marathon with the last three being within three months of each other. Welcome to the Insane Asylum Jessica! You are an inspiration to all of us.

Our youngest Son Riley made it home from Pullman yesterday. We look forward to spending time with him over the holidays. Web our oldest son will not be home for Christmas but we plan on visiting him in January to celebrate his 22nd birthday.

Happy Holidays! See those of you running Last Chance, First Call, and Tiger Mt. 50K