Bayshore Marathon Mini Report

One more Team in Training event has ended. We had our local TNT event this past weekend and it was a big success. We had over one hundred participates taking part in the Bayshore ½ and full marathon.
Now typically my duties at this event are to be in the spots on the course where I can use my humor and pleasing personality to distract the runners from their misery and pain!
Well this year, I was the full marathon sweeper. If you don’t know what a sweeper is, that’s because you run too fast to be the last person in a race. That’s right, the person just before the police car at the end. It’s the sweeper’s job to ensure that the last person is on pace to finish before they close the course.
Fortunately I didn’t start the race with the participants that would bring up the read, so I was able to see everyone as they dashed past me in both directions. This was an out and back course. I saw most of my team as they were still in a state of semi-freshness wearing their early mile smiles.
So while waiting to perform my official duties, I was able to chat and cheer for everyone that passed my way. As the clock ticked away and the hordes of cheering spectators diminished, I was the sole cheering section for the back-of-the-pack runners. I actually held conversations with a few of them while we shuffled along. One gentleman had lost sixty pounds to be able to run the marathon, he was down to 327 lbs! Another guy was down to 185 lbs but he was only five feet tall.
I met the last two TNT participants at mile 16 and they were walking, which wasn’t a total surprise since I had seen them at mile 11 and they were walking. The goal for them was to finish in six hours but they had encountered some issues along the way and that goal was fading as fast as the temps were rising. Now I’m not a fast walker by any means, so for me to keep up with these ladies meant I would be jogging and walking. We knew from our watches that a lot of the volunteers would be long gone and the fluid stations would be self-serve but that didn’t deter these ladies one bit! I normally have an abundance of things to talk about during a run but 10 miles of walking would get close to exhausting my entire repertoire of tales and advice.
Fast forward nine miles and a exhausted marathon sweeper. My feet are burning and my shins are screaming at me. Now I remember why I run, this is hard! We even had more coaches come out to greet us.



Even though we didn’t make the ‘official’ finish time our final participants were welcomed with open arms at the finish line.



Notice the time in the lower left corner and yes they're carrying a BEvERage!

Bayshore TNT Event

Bayshore ½ and Full Marathon report to come.

Here’s Great Lakes Running Girl Looking for a shortcut on across the lake.

Why Me?

Can somebody tell me why am I going through the agony and effort? I went to another ‘EXTREME hurt your body in new places” class. The trainer held it indoors so we could get in some core work and use more of the equipment.

The class consisted of a routine of doing thirty repetitions of three exercises. Which doesn’t sound like a lot, until you make it four sets with little or no time for recovery?

It’s amazing what a person can have a group of endorphin craving individuals do. I hate doing squats as a solitary exercise, why would I want to do them with my arms raised holding two dumbbells above my head? We did that thirty freaking times! Okay, now do thirty pushups and finish off this set with thirty squat jumps onto an elevated step.

First set, no problem!

Second set, hey this is getting a little tough.

Third set, WTF I can’t feel my arms. I can’t do one pushup and I sweating like crazy.

Fourth set, I’m not doing this shit, I hate that MF.

Then Mr. Trainer realizes that we have time left for some ab/core work. Why should I do this, I love my BEvERages and I’m looking forward to my big belly.

Needless to say I finished the class but it got me to thinking, why am I going through this?

A Lifetime Fee

I just received a very interesting email offer. How would you like to have a lifetime entry into a marathon? The race is guaranteeing a lifetime of racing for a one-time fee. Now of course that is the lifetime of the race first and foremost and then your life expectancy. The price is based on breaking even after five years. Here’s the link to the race: www.grandrapidsmarathon.com

This got me to thinking about what else would I pay a one-time fee for a lifetime? Chrysler is paying $2.99/ gal of gas for customers that purchase their cars during a specific time. Would you have purchase a lifetime of gasoline a few years back for say, $2.00/gal, even when we were well under that price?

How about those lifetime memberships to Vic Tanny, did any of you get in on that deal?

How about running shoes for life, but you have to stay with the same brand and model?

Since the team is tapering, so is the coach. I’ll get in a few short runs but nothing worth mentioning, I love tapering.

The Word ‘just’

It’s that time in the training when the participants always preface their mileage with the word ‘just’. This past Saturday, all they ran was ‘just’ eight miles or the ½ participants did ‘just’ six miles. I remember when these were their long runs! A few of them did comment on how the time has gone by so fast, even though we started in February and the weather hasn’t changed a lot!

I remember once when Grete Waitz ran the New York marathon with Fred LeBeow before he past away. She mentioned how difficult it was to run at a slower pace than she was accustomed to. Well, I spent my Saturday doing damage control tagging along with one of my participants for most of their long run. Since most of the team was doing shorter mileage, this participant had my undivided attention.

I swear that I was more fatigued from running a much slower pace over the course of seven miles than I would have been running at race pace!

Once again the weather in the high-five state for this weekend was crappy. We had rain, sunshine, wind gust and cooler temps in just the morning hours!

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I’m sure that Blogland will be buzzing about the Wii Fit systems. Who out there plans on purchasing it?