A River Runs Through It...And So Did I!

Note: FOR THOSE WHO READ THIS POST PRIOR TO TUESDAY, JULY 14, I AM UNABLE TO POST PICTURES DUE TO A LAPTOP PROBLEM (known in our office as the "blue screen of death").

July brought me to Missoula, Montana, home of Moose Drool Ale and the University of Montana.
The Clark Fork River runs right through downtown, and the Missoula Marathon finishes with the runners crossing the bridge over the Clark Fork to the finish line.

This is my third trip to Missoula, with the first having been during my time as Southland Conference Commissioner when I attend NCAA I-AA Football Playoff Games at the University of Montana (Note: Montana won both of those games). My previous trips were in December when it was cold, snowy and sunlight only shown from about 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. each day.

Originally, the July marathon was to have been in San Francisco, but a schedule change put me here.

Today started at 4 a.m. Mountain Time. From the Marriott Courtyard I headed downtown in a scene somewhat reminiscent of the Boston Marathon. In Boston, I left a Marriott Courtyard to head downtown to board shuttle buses that take runners to the marathon starting line. In Missoula, I left a Marriott Courtyard to head to a parking garage in downtown Missoula where runners boarded shuttle buses destined for the starting line. In Boston, the shuttle buses were school buses (aka, cheese buses). In Missoula, the shuttle buses were school buses, you betcha. In Boston, the starting line is in Hopkinton. In Missoula, the starting point is in Frenchtown. I guess the Hopkins family settled east of Boston, and some French folks settled in Frenchtown.

From there, the races are different...other than the distance.

This is a flat course. You've read my laments about the hills and altitude in Arizona, California (no real altitude problem, just a very big hill), and Colorado. So, it was very nice to run an essentially level course. The only hill came at mile 14, lasted less than a mile, and was followed by an easy two mile downhill section.

The best moment of the race came at mile 12 when a deer (had to have been at least a ten point buck) ran out of the woods to our left, lept over a fence that was easily five feet tall, kept running and again lept over the fence on the other side of the yard. It happened so fast there was not time to get the camera out, but it was cool to see. Second to that was the view two miles later at the top of the hill that provided a view of the river below and the ability to see all the way back to the start line.

The worst moment was shortly after that view, when I started to have some pain in my left foot. I learned a hard lesson several years ago that when something hurts on your foot, stop and check it out to see if you can fix the problem (e.g., remove a stone, fix a wrinkle in your sock). I stopped, cleaned, rearranged, but it did not help. So I have a blister on the bottom of my left foot. Other than that, all systems seem go.

Wait, that wasn't the worst moment. The worst moment was when I turned on my Garmin GPS watch just before the start of the race only to find what was a fully charged watch at 9 p.m. last night was now dead and of no use. Then, right at the start of the race, I dropped my iPod and had to run upstream like a salmon to pick it back up. Nice way to start.

My finishing time on the clock (gun time) was 4 hours and 24 minutes. I started slow, lost my focus from miles 14 to 21, but finished really well the last five miles. After the tough challenges in May and June it was important for me to finish well in this race. I'm not too concerned about the overall time, although I had hoped to be much closer to four hours. I think the cumulative effect of having now run four marathons in nine weeks, three marathons in five weeks and eight marathons this year. In addition to just the running, the travel is wearing me down.

The good news is I am over the halfway point in my marathon a month quest. I also have six weeks before the Park City (Utah) Marathon in August. I need the break, both to recover and to train.

I'm in a bit of a hurry, so I'll update this post with more information asap.