Last Sunday I had the honor of leading a pace group at the 12th Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon here in OKC, and it was a blast. A local running store, Red Coyote, was organizing the pace crew for the second consecutive year. We were all given bright orange singlets that said PACER in big black letters on the back and little signs stapled to dinky dowel rods. If you have never been to OKC then you might not know that the downtown area can live up to the musical theme song, but instead of the 'wind sweeping down the plains,' it funnels through buildings and likes to rip pacer signs off aforementioned dowel rods. My fellow pacer Dan and I quickly learned this lesson from the less fortunate 1:45 half pacers ahead of us!
Back track it a bit. The start of this marathon is always something very special, especially to us locals. I was living in Edmond, just north of downtown, when that fateful April 19th back in '95 came and took the lives of 168 beautiful people in the Federal building downtown. Those 168 people are recognized on banners along the course, and remembered, especially during the 168 seconds of silence before the start.
The race kicked off at 6:30 and just like that we were heading for the heart of downtown. There were quite a few people in our 3:30 group starting out. Like all beginnings the race was fairly congested and people were chatting and having a good time. My fellow 3:30 pacer had experience pacing before and did a great job estimating what we needed to be at for each mile. We alternated holding the flag through the duration of the race. The course goes by the capital building and then heads west and north into neighborhoods. One aid station was at a segment of the course called Gorilla Hill (it says so on a banner over the road, they've been there for who knows how many years) and a decent amount of people were dressed in banana suits handing out everything from water, to oranges, to alcohol. My amazing wife was running the half and turned off at around mile 7, we said our quick goodbyes, and then she split.
Around mile 12 it started to rain on us and did so for a few miles. It was getting warm and the rain was refreshing. We continued to hit each mile up to this point a ~5 seconds under pace, which ended up being necessary for the last 6 or so miles. At mile 14 I took a salt tablet. I started using them on long runs last summer and noticeably felt better in the later miles of my long runs...so why stop? At this point, we were running next to Lake Hefner and some people were starting to ease back. This race has a relay, it is also walker friendly and beyond mile 18 is where you start to see a large increase in the walkers (who started around 4 or 4:30), including the large amount of firemen in full gear.
Pains in the calf and foot started to kick in from 20 to 24, and then the pain went away. It's that feeling you get when you know you only have 2 or 3 miles left...less than a 5k, and all your worries vanish (if you're still able to run/trot/jog). We had two women finish with us that had started with us. They did an awesome job sticking it out to the end and I'm sure they are elated to have qualified for a shot at Boston. This was one of the most fun times I have had at a marathon. It was my 6th and I'm sure I will be back to do it again...maybe even pace again!
