my 1st Marathon & a Conversation with the "Jack-Rabbit

This morning I signed up for my first marathon ever! I will be running the St. Jude's Memphis Marathon on December 11, 2011, and I am worried. As soon as I hit the submit button, I got this feeling in my stomach, the "what have I done" feeling. A marathon was always a goal of mine and I figured I should do a marathon before I did my first Ironman, but the commitment has been made, and the money paid.

My HIM is in late Sept, so I will have all of October and November to prepare, so I am sure I can be ready, well pretty sure at least. I have started the Memphis Road Race Series which will only help me.

As a matter of fact, the 1st 5k run was yesterday morning. This was the first stand alone 5K I have done in a long time, so I wasn't sure what to expect. There were over 1,200 people registered for this race, so it was very crowded. I lined up about 1/3 of the way back next to a guy that had to be running on straight Red Bull. He was bouncing all over the place and was a very interesting character.

Picture Dwight Shrute from the office. This guy was dressed in all black, knee high socks and a bandanna on his head. He called himself a Jackrabbit. Here is how it went:

Jack-rabbit: I hate starting so far back, it makes it hard for a jack-rabbit like me.
Me: Excuse me?
Jack-rabbit: I said I hate starting so far back, it makes it hard for a jack-rabbit like me.
Me: You're a jack-rabbit?
Jack-rabbit: Yeah.
Me: Sighs...what's a jack-rabbit?
Jack-rabbit: someone that takes off way to fast and has to dodge everyone before I start losing energy.
Me:Uh, Yeah. Good luck

Anyways, I had a decent race. I miscalculated the ending of the run, which made me to use up my kick way early, but I finished at 25:43 (8:10 pace) I was 32 out of 92 in my Ag and 236 out of 1022 people overall. Next up in the series is a 5 miler in August.

Also I am very happy to say that my wife has joined a women's running group. She is going to work her way up to running a 5K in the fall. I am very excited to cheer her on and watch her finish. I think she is going to do much better than she thinks she will. It is going to be fun.