Next Stop, Oprah!

I'm waiting for a Swedish butter cake to come out of the oven at 2:28 a.m. (which clearly says something about me) and thought I would post something to kill the time. That's not the only reason I'm writing after a long absence. If it took butter and a whole lot of sugar baking in the oven to make me post every time, I would be in a world of trouble. The other inspiration for writing was my short run today in the neighborhood, which ended my long dry spell in running. And, as an afterthought, I realized that I hadn't yet posted about the Marine Corps Marathon, which I ran at the end of October.

I finished my 5th MCM in 4:53!!! I took 32 minutes off of my previous PR, which was 5:25. It was the hardest marathon I've ever run. I nixed my lax and relaxed marathon running style of old and really pushed myself. On a funny note, my running buddy and I worried that we "went out too fast" at a blistering 10-minute mile pace. At mile 23, I hit the wall like I had never hit it before. I felt shaky and leaden. At the end of the race, I had nothing left. For those of you who aren't familiar with the MCM course, it's pretty easy as far as marathon courses go -- not too hilly. It lulls you into a false sense of security and then BAM! A hill comes up out of nowhere right before the finish. Normally, no matter how badly I'm hurting, I can muster the strength to sprint up the hill and across the finish line. Not this year. The only thing that carried me up that hill running was my pride; I refuse to walk so close to or across the finish line. Absent a real injury, I feel like there are no excuses not to run across the finish line even at a shuffle run.

Now that I've broken the 5 hour mark, my next goal will be to beat Oprah's time of 4:29. I suppose it's ambitious to take another half-hour off. And lest you think that I'm weird for gunning for Oprah, there's a whole website devoted to it: Beat Oprah's Marathon Time for A Cure. Do you think I can do it?