My ADT Marathon Experience
- Details
- Created on Monday, 06 September 2010 21:32
- Written by Conny Schrock
My ADT Marathon Experience
Well, Thursday morning started like most days in my life; I was reading the paper, while having breakfast. Then I noticed a little note under OUTTHERECOLORADO.COM that said:”Runners: Win entry into ADT Marathon”. Never in a million years did I think that I would win, but I also thought that it couldn’t hurt to try. So that evening I logged on to outtherecolorado.com and “signed up” by leaving a comment.
The next morning I went for a run and checked my e-mail over lunch. Imagine my surprise when the unexpected happened: I had an e-mail in my inbox, telling me that I had won!!! Needless to say, I was giddy for the rest of the day and told everybody who cared to listen the good news. I love running and the next two days were the hardest, since I decided rest and not run.
Finally, the big day arrived. I got up at 3:50 am, had a quick breakfast and drove off into the dark. Fortunately, I found a good parking spot and was at the park on time. The busses arrived and loaded up the runners for the drive to Palmer Lake.
Once we got there, it was still dark and several, noticeable degrees cooler than in Colorado Springs. Lucky for me, I was on the first bus, which meant I had time to use one of the few port-a-potties. Many runners, who arrived on later busses weren’t so lucky. There was still a huge line, when we were told to go to the starting line. This is my only complaint about the organization of this race; everything else was fabulous.
Anyway, the starter pistol went off and I started running, noticing very soon that I was going faster than normal. Then again, I had never run a “downhill” marathon (I had only run two previous ones), and I felt great. After a couple miles I realized that I was on track for a less than 4 hour finish, if I could keep up the pace. My previous PR marathon time had been 4:15 last year. Somehow, I managed to do just that and I finished in 3:54.57!
There are few words to describe how happy I am right now. I ran a marathon I didn’t expect to run and got a personal best out of it. A lot of credit goes to the awesome volunteers along the course, who handed out water, Gatorade and gels. Any event of this size would not be possible without those great people.
Anyway, to make a long story short: I had a great race, thank you OutThereColorado!!! I hope you have many more drawings like this one, so a lot more people can benefit from your generosity!
Weather
Current Contests
