My third Marathon at the Oklahoma City Memorial. I skipped this race last year because I raced in Australia. Brenda and I were glad to add it back in. We have a couple of favorite restaurants in the Oklahoma City area. Race and Eat. Hard to beat a deal like that.

Oklahoma in late April might as well be called Summer time. Hot and Humid. Surprise this year. Today was COLD. Cloudy, light rain, gusty west wind and in the 40’s for the whole race. Very unusual. My goal this Marathon, finish under 5 hours. Just a nice supported training walk. I have a VERY important race in The Netherlands in five weeks. The last thing on my mind was a personal best marathon. An exciting race with a bunch of other racers. Cool temperature. Well tapered. Rested. I should have known I would feel good. I raced within my ability. The whole race felt easy to me. Except for a few areas where you had to step in water over your shoes and the wind it was a perfect race day. I had no reason to push myself and I didn’t. However looking back now I missed my personal best Marathon by 55 seconds. Surely I could have walked 55 seconds faster. Oh well I am Very Pleased. Bubbling over with confidence going into the final training push before my Centurion Qualifier.

I finished with a 4:50:47.