Race report - 5k & Illinois marathon (it may be long!)
If you ran the 5k on Friday night, and either the half or the full marathon on Saturday, you qualified for extra bling. As a daily runner, who would have to arrive Friday anyway, there was never really any doubt that I would do both races.
So, Friday morning, I got everything packed up, ran a couple of errands, and pointed the car in a vaguely southwest direction, and drove the 300 miles or so to my alma mater, the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. I got there early, and after circling the packing lot (in a manner vaguely reminiscent of a vulture, hovering over a likely meal), I finally parked and made my way inside.
As in previous years, packet pickup was a breeze, although they have gone to B-tags, which I like less than D-tags. The expo is still fairly small - the marathon is only in its third year, so there is basically one gear store, a couple booths for other races, and some of the local running or health related businesses. I stopped off at the Marathon & Beyond booth to renew my subscription, and basically wandered around to kill time until the evening race. I did manage to get Frank Shorter's autograph, although I missed getting Lorraine Moller's - though I did chat with her briefly, and even got to hold her Olympic medal.
Eventually, it was time for the 5k. I got changed and dropped my stuff off back at the car, causing no small amount of disappointment and gnashing of teeth when I told people that, "No, I am not moving the car. I am dropping stuff off in order to go run."
The 5k itself was pretty uneventful. It was a flat course, the sun was out, it was not too breezy, and I got in a decent warm-up jogging the half-mile to the start line. I had chosen my Vibrams - first, I could then say that, whatever I did, it was a PR (since it would be my first race in the toeshoes), and second, it should keep me from attempting a PR, which would have made the marathon harder. I was not the only person wearing them for the 5k, and I chatted with a barefoot runner at the start line. After some minor confusion, we were off, and what started as a comfortable pace became too slow, and I sped up through much of the race. The race finishes up on the 50 yard line of the stadium, which is always good for a final kick, although the 5k comes in at the south end, runs of the field on the east side, does a U-turn, and then heads back to the 50 yard line, which makes a real final kick hard. Official time was 21:00 even - less than a minute off my 5k PR, and in Vibrams besides.
The next morning was the marathon itself. After some minor obstacles (ie, lots of people all trying to get there at the same time, almost forgetting to put something in the bag before dropping the same bag into bag check, etc), I was waiting at the start. My original plan was to run it at a nice, easy pace - I was not out to PR, so anything in the 3:55-4:05 range was going to be okay.
After standing around in the wind for a while, we eventually we off. Within the first mile, I was passed up by what I heard was the mens swim team. They were wearing shoes. And a couple had cowboy hats. And speedos. And that was it.
By mile 2 or so, I had fallen in with a fairly small group, including an ultra runner. As it turned out, he and I had run some races together, so we chatted away for the next 19 miles or so. Sometimes we would have new people join us, and people would periodically drop back or speed up - probably to avoid our random, sometimes somewhat pointed, remarks. I'm pretty sure my singing of the theme to Mr. Roger's Neighborhood causes a couple of people to back away.
Somewhere around mile 21, I made a bio-break that he didn't, and, when I was done, although I could see him (maybe a quarter mile away), it wasn't worth the effort to reel him in, and I fell in with other runners. I was doing fairly well, until my genuflection to the man serving cups of beer at mile 22. In retrospect, dropping to me knees and saying "We're not worthy, we're not worthy" may have been a proximate cause of some cramping later on. It was worth it though.
The wind is what eventually got me. (Well, that, and a small blister that was much more annoying than it should have been. Still not sure why I got it - one of my socks must have been caught funny in the shoe, and caused some extra friction.) The wind was strong, easily more than 20mph when you faced into it, and it seemed that more than half of the race was into the wind. It may have been cool, and overcast, but that wind was brutal. On the penultimate turn, it pretty much stopped me dead in my tracks, and it took a few steps before I could start running again. A strong finish put me across the mat with a chip time of 4:00:55, which is pretty much what I wanted, and was expecting. The first 22 miles or so were solid, albeit slower than I would have been trying if I had been racing, and even the latter miles were fairly decent, from a pace perspective, since I did not slow down that much.
I collected my marathon medal, got my extra bling, got cleaned up, had lunch with a friend, and then drove the 300 miles or so back home. Got an easy 3-mile run in yesterday, as well as mowing half the lawn. Still haven't run yet today, though I will, and I might even get the chance to finish mowing the lawn. My legs aren't really all that sore - no more so than if I had run 15 or 16 miles, and it probably has a lot to do with the 9 hours or so that I spent in the car between Friday morning and Saturday evening.
GO! WISH Team GO! 
(I did remember to pack the charger to use between events 
) the weekend went like my previous back to back weekends. I held back Saturday to make sure I could finish Sunday with my Sunday time being slightly faster than Saturday. 
