The Motivation

The date: December 6th, 2009
The place: Las Vegas, Nevada
The event: Las Vegas Rock N' Roll Marathon
The result: Ultimate motivation

My training for this year's Clarence DeMar Marathon in Keene, New Hampshire began shortly after finishing last year's Las Vegas Marathon, where I ran a 3:11:03. Four seconds - count them: 4 seconds - shy of qualifying for the Boston Marathon, the Mecca of marathon running. While being quite happy about running so well, and feeling like I couldn't have given anything more, I was understandably crushed. I knew that race would be my motivation for my next attempt.

I started feeling good about a month ago (near the end of August) when I ran a Half Marathon up in PA. It was a tougher course than the Half I ran last year and was pouring rain most of the way so that all considered, I was feeling good about my 1:32:55. Most of my runs, especially the weekend long runs went really well. I don't usually get that excited about a marathon so far in advance. I was anxious to get my chance.

I had a long week of work before flying out to NH after work on Friday, but I made darn certain that I still got some decent sleep. Saturday I woke up after a good 9 hours of sleep and we had brunch in downtown Peterborough.

The Fall colors were starting to change, making the scenery rather beautiful.

Brunch at Nonies (right)

Dad and I watched Prefontaine before heading out to Keene. We drove the first 19 of the course (can't drive 19-20) and headed over to pick up our packets. We checked the board for our numbers - and for some reason they didn't list the people alphabetically, but by race number - and couldn't find our name! It should be easy, right? Look for the longest name? We went over to the registration table and told them we couldn't find our names. After checking the list as well, they had us just fill out forms for new numbers (no extra charge) - which was super nice of them. With one last check before they handed us numbers, the guy came over and said he found us in the database. Apparently our last name was too long and they listed us under "Ski" - why wouldn't you abbreviate it from the beginning!? Well, bags (number and shirt) finally in hand, we headed out to drive the rest of the course and then dinner at Olive Garden.

After a rousing game of Mexican Train Dominoes - I won the 3rd game, though tainted by Dad's misplay - we got everything ready for the race and headed to bed.