Number 37 was the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon on 29 April 2018. The run is in honor of the 168 people who lost their lives in the worst domestic terrorism attack in US history. I finished in 4:21.04, placing 19 of 78 in my age group and 384 out of 1154 make finishers. I got to 32K in 2.49.09 but the last 10K took an hour and a half. Rachael ran the half marathon in 2:41.
Number 37 came more than two years after number 36, I had been busy with new projects in China. I kept running during 2016 and 2017, but was unable to fix a date for the next marathon and train for it cleanly. Training for Oklahoma was also a challenge. I returned from China at Christmas 2017 and started training during our annual trip to Florida. Here's a photo at the start of training, note that I'm a bit pudgy, up 25 pounds from the all time low I reached in Kentucky.
I attend too many banquets in China. Happily I lost 10 pounds during training, mostly from not drinking much in January. Training for this race was global, here's a shot from Bath in February
and one from Guangxi province in Southern China in early April
Most of the training took place in Kunshan, however. Here are a couple of shots of what runs look like there.
I used the Nike Run Club training app to prepare for this race. For some reason Nike's recommended daily runs were not particularly long, often just a couple of miles. The Nike Training Club app was great for days when I could not run, I could use it to work out in hotel rooms when I was on the road with no running shoes. I did manage to get in several long runs in Kunshan, peaking with a 20 mile run a month before the marathon. In the end, however, I entered this race a 10 pounds heavier and a bit less hardened than I would have liked.
I had not run fast or raced in a long time.
Rachael and I flew to Oklahoma via Atlanta the day before the race, arriving on time at 3 pm. As always, the hassle of going to pick up the race packet was a pain but we got there easily before the 6 pm closing and by 5 pm had walked from the convention center to the 21C hotel. Situated in a former Ford assembly plant, the 21c is an roomy art museum and hotel. Of course, it seemed like home to us because the 21c Durham hotel is across the street from our actual home. While Oklahoma itself seems like a dusty windswept plain, Downtown Oklahoma City is surprisingly vibrant and friendly. An street art fair was sharing the weekend with the marathon and lots of folks were downtown. It was hard to get dinner and brunch reservations, we had dinner in the bar at Mary Eddy's in the hotel, the regular dining room was sold out. Dinner was great, although I wish I had carb-loaded. The hotel arranged a 3 pm check out on race day for all runners, which is a super friendly thing to do.
All races started at 6:30, we got up at 4:45 and walked the mile to the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum at 5:30. Here we are in the early morning at the memorial:
There were over 24,000 runners, mostly running the half marathon. Rachael and I went to corral C together, starting slow seemed like a good idea. Race morning started cool (in the 50's) but built steadily into the 80's as the morning progressed. Wind was gusting up to 20 mph, so eventually things were a bit miserable on the course. The fact that Oklahoma had not yet had a tornado this year was in the news, but a major storm came through a couple of days after the race.
The start of the race was well organized, there was a very moving 168 second moment of silence for the victims of the 1995 terroist attack. The wheel chairs went of at 6:25 and the race started on time at 6:30. It took me about 7 minutes to get to the starting line from corral C. After that, I was in a big crowd until the half marathon course diverged from the marathon course between miles 7 and 8. Mile 8 was my fastest at 7:40, mile 24 was the slowest at 16:00. I had a general goal of staying under 4 hours, but as the splits indicate below I did not achieve this goal. At the half I was nearly on pace for a 3:30 marathon but I dropped 250 places in the last 10K. Basically, as the course turned back into the wind from the south at Lake Hefner and the heat bore down, I decided that the struggle to stay under 4 hours was not worth it. I walked and trotted the last 10K in 1:32, 40 minutes slower than the first 10K. I was pretty miserable at the finish, but much less miserable than in previous races and I felt mostly recovered in 3 days, much faster than in previous runs. It will be interesting to see how future runs go, but for now the goal is just to get'er done.
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Location
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Time
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Pace
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Time
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Ranking Division
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Ranking Overall
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10K
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51:33
(6.2mi)
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8:19/M
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51:33
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|
339/1920
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|
15K
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1:16:27
(9.3mi)
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8:13/M
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1:16:27
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310/1920
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Half
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1:47:52
(13.1mi)
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8:14/M
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1:47:52
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|
283/1920
|
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27K
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2:20:54
(16.74mi)
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8:25/M
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2:20:54
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|
274/1920
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32K
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2:49:09
(19.84mi)
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8:31/M
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2:49:09
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274/1920
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Finish
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4:21:04
(26.2mi)
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9:58/M
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4:21:04
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524/1920
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I have been to all 50 states in one way or another. I have spent the least time in Oklahoma of all 50. My only previous visit was in 1983, when Rachael and I drove through on our way from Minnesota to Corpus Christi for spring break. We drove through the night in 1983, my memory is of rest areas filled with pickup trucks and folks in the rest room shifting their side arm so they could pee. My thoughts of Oklahoma are dominated by the history of the trail of tears, Rogers and Hammerstein, the Grapes of Wrath and the dust bowl. The current population of Oklahoma is 3.9 million spread over 180 thousand square kilometers. The current population of North Carolina is 10.3 million spread over 137 thousand square kilometers. The population of Jiangsu is 74 million spread over 102 thousand square kilometers. The odds of finding me in Oklahoma are less than 3.9 in (10.3+3.9) or even 3.9 in 78, but I doubt I'll need another 35 years to find my way back.
Here I am at the finish
walking back to the hotel I stopped to pay respects to the missing 168, as shown here
and then Rachael and I had lunch at Mary Eddy's, took a quick (and hot) walk around the art fair, put on our finisher shirts and flew home, as shown here
