Dave, myself, Kirby, Phil, and his son (on bikes) Matt Smythe, Justin, and two others that I'm sorry I forgot their names all met up and took off from the finish line. It was professionally "chip" timed, which consisted of Dave handing out two Pringles to everyone every time we crossed a timing mat. There was a mist the entire run, but we never actually got wet. Finishing up at the real races starting line, our race director came in a very unofficial 1st place. All hail Dave. We all proceeded back to the cars to change socks and shirts, and made our way to the start. Dave, Justin, and I were the only one's doing the double. Everyone else headed to their designated sleeping areas. Considering I had taken a 45 min nap from 12:15 to 1:00 am, I envied them a little bit.
The marathon field was the largest it had ever been at around 15 thousand entrants. The race started without me being able to find Mark, who was also going to be pacing for the first half because he is running the JFK 50 miler this coming weekend. It wasn't too hard to pick him out considering he was sporting a rainbow colored clown wig, "So people could easily spot him." It turns out, people find it easier to follow. Bonus. We settled into our very relaxed 9:43 min/mile pace and cruised along. We started with around 15-20 people in our group including two of the editors for Runner's World. (One of them is the woman in the greenish tank in the picture) At the half way point he dropped and got our group to chant "wear the wig," until I wore the wig. So, for the last half, I wore the wig. By the time mile 20 (or 46 for some) rolled around I was down to a steady group of two. David (what is it with runners named Dave? They are everywhere.) from Stafford and Andrew from Richmond. We all criused into the finish in around 4:11. I was 4 minutes early...not the greatest, but not too bad either. All in all, I had a blast and Adam did awesome finishing his first marathon in 3:19.
