Wild Card - Pittsburgh Marathon

  My college roommate, Andrew and I drove to Pennsylvania together this weekend to run in the Pittsburgh Marathon.  We drove out Saturday for the packet pickup and expo.  The expo was really big and we were so lucky to get to meet Hal Higdon!  He's a former Runner's World writer and THE name in marathon training.  I've used his training programs several times now.  He signed both of our race bibs and wished us luck.  That marked the beginning of an awesome race weekend...

  Due to parking difficulties and bathroom lines, we started the race almost 20 minutes late.  Normally in the starting coral, runners will line up according to their predicted finish times.  The benefit of this is that you get to run with runners that are going the same pace for much of the race.  Because we were so late, we had to start way back behind the super-slow runners and even a lot of walkers.  I ran on the sidewalks and zig-zagged through clusters of walkers for the first 6 or 7 miles.  Not an ideal way to start the race :)

  This was the first race I'd done where it rained the entire time.  This wasn't necessarily a bad thing - the temperature at 7am was already 73 degrees.  If it wasn't for the rain, it would have been really hot - really quick.  The worst part about the rain was running in heavier, soaking wet clothes and shoes.

This guy, for example... That wet shark suit must have weighed a ton!

I filmed this at around mile 10 to document how I was feeling.  Wet!

Pittsburgh is a beautiful city to run in.  Some pictures of the ballparks...

Heinz Field

PNC Park

  I passed a spectator who was holding a sign that highlighted Isaiah 40:31, "They shall run and not grow weary..."  I repeated that over and over and it helped me overcome the rain, the hills and the horrific late start to set a personal best of 4:10:33 which works out to 9:30 per mile.  Thank you Lord!

  Andrew and I at the finish in front of one of the 5 bridges we crossed.  Congrats to Andrew for his 14th state!  I would 100% do this race again someday.  It was so well organized- a great expo, great freebies, great spectators (even in the pouring rain), plenty of aid stations, beautiful course, and a great medal.

  All the freebies... Nike shirt and socks, great bag, some sneaker odor balls (?) and the heaviest medal I've received to date.  If you look closely, you can see Hal Higdon's signature on my bib!