Thunder Road motivation

This past weekend I participated in the Thunder Road marathon relay as an official pacer and I had a blast helping someone out while soaking up all of the people cheering. Most of the people who live locally did some part of the Thunder Road event, being the 5k, half marathon, or the full marathon distance.

Every year I always make it a point to be around for this race in some aspect because I think its great how we have such a big event that continues to grow in my own backyard. Several of my friends and running buddies had amazing runs while waking up to below freezing temperatures. I had my duties were aligned, as I planned to meet up with Alice Rogers who was pacing for a debut 3:15 marathon somewhere around 13 miles. My plan before that was to run with Billy Shue who was also running the full but was shooting for a lofty goal of possibly 2:45 but with realistic goals of going sub 2:55 if all else fails.


While jogging between the 7th and 8th mile on the course, I was fortunate enough to see several friends like Paul, Matt, Greg and Brian running very quickly just before I spotted Billy cruising. Jumping in with Billy I could tell he was feeling great and was very confident with his ability to finish very strong. Since I started so early in the race, i decided to cut off around 10 1/4 miles to cheer on everyone else and wait to jump in. I was waiting with Logan and Glenn who were waiting for Mo to come through, who was shooting for sub 3:10 as her debut.



Watching all of these people pushing hard was great and made me feel amazing just being able to have the ability to run no matter what pace it is. I eventually jumped in and chatted with Alice who was making the marathon look like a breeze. My roommate Glenn had the duties to ride his bike with the boom box on it for tunes next to the runners for awhile to provide encouragement, but had technical difficulties with having extremely cold hands and had to retire early. Going around Charlotte I got to see all of the different crowds as well as different DJ's blasting music. Inside I was bouncing to the music whether it was 80's, rock or rap music, with a big grin.

Alice and I made it through the city passing person after person who went out just a bit to quick, and realized their was only 10k to go and she was actually in 4th place. Eventually due to a great race plan, we were rolling up the other women on the course except Mo who took the lead for good at 20 miles. Eventually taking over 3rd place, with the 2nd place woman way in the distance, Alice dug deep to catch up to her just before the end and narrowly miss 2nd place by 2 seconds! This reminds me of my pacing group last year, Logan shooting for the sub 3:10 goal while his 2 other teammates thinking the same thing. It all came down to the last straightaway and all 3 of these guys dug with everything they had to finish mere seconds apart over 26.2 miles, HOW EXCITING!

All in All I am just pumped to see that some good friends ran amazing and everyone seemed to be VERY pleased with their result no matter what. After getting home I wrapped up my 20th mile for the day with strides in the grass and felt amazing....this leads me to the title, "Thunder Road Motivation". As of right now I will be competing in a marathon come 2010. NYC is about 95% and I am about 85% confident I may train for the Shamrock Marathon come March. This makes for a very busy schedule for me come March/April...All of these races I am expecting new PR's while hoping for an injury free winter.



February 6th(my b-day) Tybee Half
February 13th- cupids cup 5k
March- Shamrock Marathon, Cooper River Bridge run, and MAP triathlon.
April- Boston Marathon(pacing logan)/ Duathlon Nationals.

Congrats to everyone who ran and I want to give shout outs to those I saw in person! (I hope I got everyone I saw)

Theoden Janes: 3:42
Chris Page: 3:12
Dianne Allen: 3:47
Paul Mainwaring: 2:38 (3rd overall)
Billy Shue: 2:44 (5th overall)
Mo Campbell: 3:04 (1st female overall)
Alice Rogers: 3:14 (3rd female overall)
Matt Jaskot: 1:17 - half
Jordan Kinnley: 2:29 (overall winner)
Brian McMahon: 1:15 (5th overall)half
Jefferson Waugh: 2:57
Paul Gonzales: 3:12
Jocelyn Sikora: 1:29 (3rd female overall) half
Amelia Slagle: 1:28 (2nd female overall) half
John Cristiano: 3:23
Lauren Tilton: 22:08 (5th female overall) 5k


So Marathon for real this time? I have nearly 3 months to train for it! Need to figure out a goal time