I'm always a bit wary flying these days on 9/11. Anyways I took an early flight with American Airlines out of LAX. I landed in DFW at terminal A for a layover. I took the Skylink over to terminal C for my next flight. However there was nothing around terminal C that I'd like eating, so I took the Skylink back to terminal A to eat at Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen. You had to either take the elevator or the escalator down to the restaurant. I started things off with a Karbach Hopadillo. Nothing like a nice refreshing beer to pass time during a layover. For my meal I ordered the Shrimp Etoufee with dirty rice. That was a mighty tasty meal!
Early morning flight out of LAX
Karbach Hopadillo
Shrimp Etouffee with dirty rice
After landing in Eppley Airfield in Omaha, Nebraska, I headed over to the Thrifty car rental counter to pick up my car. It was a counter shared with Dollar car rental. After filling out the paperwork, I went into the parking structure to pick up the keys at the booth. I was given a "purple" Mitsubishi Mirage hatchback. It was more of a fuchsia color. I guess that's the car that they give to people that reserve the economical car. It took about an hour and a half to drive down to Shenandoah, Iowa. It was a pretty uneventful drive. I saw and drove by a lot of cornfields.
Once I arrived in Shenandoah, I drove to my motel, the Tall Corn Inn to check in. After checking in and picking up my room key, I drove the car over to my room. It was a decent clean room. It had a bit of rustic feel to it. I waited until it was about 5 pm before driving over to the Shenandoah Chamber Office over on Maple to pick up my race packet. I parked in the small parking lot next to the Chamber Office. The pick up process was quick and simple. The volunteers found it interesting that I came all the way over from California to run a marathon in Iowa. For the race shirt, I had a choice between a green or beige color. I went with beige.
On the way back to my motel, I drove over to the nearby Hy-Vee to pick up some drinks, snacks, and bananas. Then for dinner, I had drive-thru at McDonald's. It turned out that they were giving free medium fries and drinks for ordering the Buttermilk Crispy Chicken sandwich. I got that and the usual pre-race Big Mac.
McDonald's!
Buttermilk Crispy Chicken Sandwich
Rental car
Drinks and snacks
I went through the race packet and laid out Mr. Flat Runner. The only thing that I saw useful was a sample pack of KT tape which I don't use. I will have to give that out to one of my friends. The drawstring bag was for gear check if you plan to check in any gear at the starting line.
Expo stuff
Flat runner
Saturday 9/12
I got ready, checked out of my room, and drove on over to the bus pick up spot. On my way over the front windshield fogged up to the point where I could not see a thing. There was a car behind me, so I turned on the emergency lights and moved slowly over to the side to let him by and clear up the windshield. The pickup spot was in front of the Depot Restaurant which was the location of the finish line. The bus was scheduled to leave at 6:30 am for the marathon. I was fortunate enough to find a parking spot right in front of the restaurant. The bus drove us out to the starting line located at the East Mills High School in Malvern, Iowa.
East Mills High School (Malvern, IA)
Marathon Maniacs Legends
After some last minute instructions, we were sent on our way. The weather started off in the high 40's, but it would warm up throughout the day. The first mile and half was run through the city of Malvern to the Wabash Trace Trail. We would be on that trail for most of the race until about mile 24. The first two miles felt okay, then by mile 3 I was feeling quite sluggish. I had been losing weight and most likely had not fully recovered from the Dumbo Double Dare last weekend. My energy level always feel low when I'm trying to lose a few pounds. I was struggling running when there was barely an incline.
Wabash Trace Trail
The rollers during the last two miles or so really wore me out! It was pretty sunny and I was reduced to a walk a couple of times. During the final mile, a special needs guy on an official race bike comes riding next to me. He rode next to me and talked to me until I reached the finishing the chute. That really made me feel like the race winner!
1: 8:31
2: 8:39
3: 9:10
4: 9:13
5: 9:42
6: 9:53
7: 11:04
8: 10:37
9: 10:25
10: 10:43
11: 10:51
12: 11:54
13: 11:14
14: 11:27
15: 10:59
16: 11:35
17: 12:17
18: 12:47
19: 13:04
20: 13:44
21: 12:39
22: 10:56
23: 12:11
24: 12:11
25: 14:06
26.2: 13:57
Finish: 4:53:48
I finished about where I had expected to finish, somewhere just below 5 hrs. This was a small town race so I was not expecting much, but this turned out to be a great enjoyable race. The course was beautiful. About 90% of the course was under tree cover so it kept things pretty cool. If you're looking to run a marathon in the state of Iowa, I would not hesitate to recommend this race.
Finish line
After getting my medal and a printout of my results, I proceeded to get cleaned up a bit. I wiped off the salt and gunk off of my face and changed into dry clothes. I then used the restroom inside the Depot restaurant before I hopped into my car and headed back up to Eppley Airfield in Omaha to catch my flight home.
Medal and results
I gassed up the rental car at the Kick's 66 gas station off of Ave H before dropping it off at the airport. The flight into DFW was slightly ahead of schedule. Since it was supposed to be a very short layover, I hurried and caught the Skylink over to terminal C. Just moments before we were supposed to start boarding our plane, they announced that they needed to do maintenance work on the plane. I think the captain's chair needed to be replaced. They kept pushing back the time 30 minutes at a time. Eventually it was delayed about 2 hours as we needed to wait for another plane. Since we had to wait, I went to get some food at McDonald's for dinner. Everything was fine once we boarded the plane.
Dinner at McDonald's
With the delay in DFW, I had gotten home later than I had anticipated. I unpacked, showered, and quickly went to sleep since I had a 10k and 5k to run tomorrow at Dodger Stadium!
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