Palm Beaches Marathon

  When the plane landed at the Fort Lauderdale airport, a smile immediately grew on my face.  I arrived with 2 full days before the marathon and was looking forward to getting in a long run in the warm sun.  Leaving Ohio, to run in Florida, can be a wonderful thing in December.

  I ran to Tree Tops Park and discovered my new favorite park in Broward County. It was a decent size park, with about 3 miles of running trails and a mile or so of paved road/bike trail. The trails went through a thick forest, of sandy soil, with lots of citrus trees. There was also this large fig tree with a wooden tower built beside it. The scientific name, ficus benghalatis, is said to be one of the oldest/tallest trees in the area. I've heard the trees have been large enough to build small villages under.

Beauty Berries - I tried them and they weren't to bad

This was the beuaitufl lake i ran around in Tree Tops

  The day before the marathon, I got to run in Fort Lauderdale about 18 miles with F.I.T. aka Friends in Training.  There were at least 5 different groups that met for a long run, Groups A, B, C, D & E, so we passed other groups during the long run.  Water stations were set up in various spots on the course for us too.  On the course, we cross over a draw bridge, twice, each time had to wait.  We also got to run along the boardwalk for a couple miles and got to see the sun rise.  I love watching the sun rise, especially while running along a body a water.  It can be such an incredible feeling watching the sun rise and just thinking about how amazing and beautiful this world really is.

  Later on that day, we worked at the expo and then went to the dinner and the pacer meeting. It was held at a high class restaurant with live opera singers. We could barely hear each other at times, but it was still quite entertaining.

  Next on the list - a good night's sleep for the whole reason on the vacation - the marathon. I was the 3:25 pace group leader and they said the temps were higher than normal reaching into the low 80s. By the time I finish; it should only be in the low 70s but it should be sunny the entire time. The race starts around 6:45, a few minutes after the wheelchair participants.

  It was a beautiful, yet warm day down in Palm Beaches.  The sun came out a little after 7:00, and it grew warmer and warmer.  I had a small group to begin with, about 8 or so, but that group dwindled quickly to only 3 runners after 14-15 miles.   Those 3 dropped off by the time we hit mile 18. 

  Besides running the last few miles by myself, the mile 18 mile marker was wrong. It read 18.6 when its normally only a quarter mile over the true marathon distance. I had to decide if the course was going to be long or if the mile markers were just off. I stayed on pace and mile 19 came early again around 19.9. Then the next 2 miles were approximately a mile apart, like normal, and the course looped back to where we ran earlier; so I decided the course would stay long if the mile markers were hit at 20.9, 21.9, 22.9ish... so I picked up the pace.

  I've never paced nor ran any marathon that was long like this, but would've stayed on pace if I had runners with me but the ones who were, were no longer in sight. I ended up passing runner after runner and finishing right on my goal time - long course goal time, of 3:24:31. I ended up winning my age group and finishing in the top 10. We had a 3:15 pacer, but something happened and he wasn't in the line-up.  Good thing, cause he would've been ahead of me.

Our wonderful pace team (most of them)

  I ran back to the hotel, showered, clecked out, then ran/walked back to visit my fellow pacers. This was one interesting experience, and I treated it like a challenge trying to finish on time with a long course. I congratulated many finishers after, many whom ran their first ultramarathon, since, an ultramarathon, even if it was unintentional.