Eye-Q Two Cities Marathon

The Morning Drive
After dropping off some clothes at the Goodwill bin, I took off for Fresno. I was making pretty good time despite seeing lots of Highway Patrol Cars. They caught most of the super reckless drivers. I kept it to 80 tops and usually hung with a pack of cars. I had a pit stop at a Starbucks in Bakersfield and I arrived at my hotel in about 4 hours. I had thought about taking the free event shuttle to the expo, but I wanted to buy supplies and go eat lunch somewhere after the expo so I decided to drive there.

The Expo and Stuff
I picked up my race packet and ticket for the pasta dinner. I then walked through the small expo and fortunately saw nothing to buy. I then waited to hear Dick Beardsley speak. I talked to him beforehand, had him sign my bib, and snapped a photo. He is a very good speaker. It was fun to listen to his stories about his life and running. He was signing autographs and selling stuff afterward. I bought both of his books (Duel in the Sun and Staying the Course: A Runner's Toughest Race) and a shirt. My marathon maniac friend, Mitch spotted me while I was listening to Dick. By coincidence we were both staying at the Holiday Inn Express, so we decided to meet up later and go to the pasta dinner together. Good thing because we would have a hard time finding the place.

I first drove to a Walgreens to buy some water and orange juice. I then drove to a Japanese restaurant on Ness called Sakura Chaya. I ate their lunch special which had California rolls, tempura, chicken terikyaki, and unagi don. It was okay but very Americanized, but that's to be expected since I was in Fresno. I then headed back to my hotel to rest. I watched a little bit of Underworld 2 and surfed the web on my ancient laptop with the free hotel internet. Then it was time to go to the pasta dinner. Mitch and I took the shuttle back to the expo. Along with a bunch of other people, we all had a hard time finding the location. Well we finally found it and ate the somewhat mediocre pasta. They didn't even have spaghetti. All they had was penne, one of my least favorite pasta. But it was still worth it since we got to listen to Dick Beardsley speak again. They showed a clip of the 1982 Boston Marathon, the duel in the sun between him and Alberto Salazar. After all of that was over, we hopped on the shuttle back to our hotel. When I got to my room, I had started to watch The Spirit of the Marathon dvd but fell asleep sometime around 7:30. I had originally planned on watching The Dark Knight on HBO but I was knocked-out.

Pre Race
I got up at around 4am to get ready. Ate my Powerbar and drank my juice. I packed up all of my stuff and put them in my car. When it was time to go, I checked out and met up with Mitch in the hotel's free breakfast area. We took the shuttle for a quick ride over to the starting area. We waited around and watched the half marathoners take off at 7am. Mitch went to check his bag at the Cintas trucks while I went to use the potty. As I jogged over to the Cintas trucks to meet up with Mitch, I knew it was going to be a difficult day. The right Achilles was tight. It did not hurt or give me trouble when I walked so I figured I'll give it shot. Worse thing I'll do is drop out at the first relay station. We proceeded to our starting corral... corral C.

1st Half
I started off slow. Mitch was going to run with the 4 hour pace group so I made sure I never got close to him. I could not find a comfortable gait/pace until about 2 miles in. The course took us on the Clovis Old Town Trail. At around mile 5 I was actually starting to feel pretty good and I started closing in on the 4 hour pace group. I think the pacer was a little bit slow but still I made sure I did not catch the group. Mile 10 was a pain having to run into a headwind. Coming back up the Clovis Old Town Trail was really hurting my Achilles from having to go down and up through several underpass tunnels. I was struggling on each uphill part. One thought kept running through my head: I cannot believe that I was attempting to finish this race just for a nice finisher's sweatshirt. I was ready for the race to be over when I reached the halfway mark. I was thinking how great it would have been to be a relay runner and just have someone else finish the race.
1: 9:35
2: 9:04
3: 9:11
4: 9:26
5: 8:50
6: 9:03
7: 9:53
8: 9:24
9: 9:16
10: 10:10
11: 10:38
12: 10:23
13: 10:59
13.1: 2:07:05

2nd Half
Mile 15 was more pain running into more headwind. I was really tired at around mile 18, so I started taking longer walking breaks. There was somewhat of a climb at around mile 23 so I had to walk a bit to rest the Achilles. Because I wanted the race to be over sooner rather than later, I managed a decent stride and ran most of the final mile passing some of the people that I had been leapfrogging for the past 20 or so miles. The announcer, whom I had met at the expo, gave me a shout out. He told the crowd that this was my 3rd marathon in 3 weeks and that it was my 17th this year. I heard a comment from one of the volunteers, "woah, that's crazy!"
14: 10:09
15: 11:05
16: 12:04
17: 11:27
18: 12:08
19: 16:11
20: 16:48
21: 12:57
22: 11:40
23: 14:26
24: 13:57
25: 13:54
26: 12:43
26.2: 1:56
Finish: 4:57:30

Post Race
I walked over to pick up my medal and the nice zippered sweatshirt. I had to work quite hard for it. I then picked up a plate of breakfast: some scrambled eggs, spicy potatoes, and sausages. They were really good. I thought about getting seconds, but that will slow me down on my quest to reach 130. Then I made my way to the beer garden to look for my friend Mitch. He was there with his mom listening to the band. The band was pretty good. I gave one of my two beers to Mitch since I was going to be driving home soon. I said goodbye to Mitch and went to find a shuttle back to the hotel to pick up my car. Most likely I will see him again in Malibu since maniacs run every weekend.

Just as with the NYC Marathon, my Achilles felt fine for the rest of the day after the race. But it swelled up overnight and it's now rather uncomfortable walking up or down stairs. But it is no worse today than it was the day after MCM or NYC. The trip would've been worth it just to meet Dick Beardsley. This race was one of the best managed races that I've run in. I would recommend this race to anyone looking for a small town cozy marathon where they treat their runners really well. I just might be back in the future to see how I'd do with 2 working Achilles.