My 2nd marathon was an improvement as for time over my 1st. It was easier in some ways and extremely difficult in others. With the Deseret News I felt great until about the 1/2 marathon mark when my IT Band started to flair. For the Top of Utah, I was dealing with IT Band pains from the beginning. Not wanting to drop out I began taking ibuprofen from the beginning of the race and probably consumed 1800 mg over the course of the race. I paid dearly for that over the remainder of the day with extreme stomach pains, and then over the next few days as my leg ached like it did the very first time I over worked it.
Never-the-less, I was very happy to have completed in 4:29:26. A slight improvement over the previous race.
I was really excited to see my family several times along the course. It really surprised me how seeing them cheer me along really helped motivate me and helped me along. The first 1/2 of this marathon was a great run despite the IT Band pain. I couldn't believe how pretty it was, with perfect temperatures. Later in the run it really got warm and made it difficult.
Also, the day before I met Dane Raushenberg who wrote a book 52 marathons in 52 weeks. He was promoting his book in the race packet pick-up section. Anyway, somewhere along the "wall" portion of the marathon I look over and see him cheering us runners on. I don't know if he ran the race and was walking back along the course to cheer us on, or if he just stuck around the following day to watch. But something about his energetic and enthusiastic cheering really struck a chord with me. He truly understood better any other spectator what each of us runner was going through and knew how to motivate us along.
