2009 Columbus Marathon

It was cold and dark start on October 18th. We waited for a while at the hotel since it was only 2 blocks away from the start of the marathon.
When I got to the start it was a bit chaotic, seemed like lots of people crammed into one small space at the start. It was so packed I couldn’t get to the 4:00 pace group and ended up starting way behind 5:30 pace group.

Then as everyone started to slowly move towards the start, right in the middle there were about 5 guys/girls standing like an immovable island in the middle of a river waiting for something and made everyone walk around them, that was not cool.
After that the run went well. The first several miles you could see every ones breath in the cold crispy air, and it looked like the whole current of runners was steaming.
Columbus course is pretty flat with a few very low grade ups but mostly downs, which makes is a very nice fast race.

Volunteers and supporters were great, water and Gatorade stations were about every mile or so. The race is well organized and well run. I would definitely recommend it.

I didn’t have too many problems during the run, but at around mile 12 my right big toe starting hurting and I could feel every uneven ground with it and the pain was pretty bad. The first few miles after that I tried to brush the pain aside and tried stepping on all the flat spots on the road, and it worked for a while but in a few miles the pain came back. Then I decided to concentrate on the pain, on all the pain I was feeling everywhere and enjoy it. I told myself, if I’m feeling pain, I’m going as fast as I can. And I enjoyed it all the way to the finish. I caught up with the 4:00 hr pace group at about mile 20 and thought about running with them but felt like they were going too slow for me, so I passed them. I even picked up the pace in the 2nd half and really picked up the pace on the last mile.
I wanted to finish in less than 4 hours, and I did, with a final time of 3:52:58

Congratulations to everyone who participated in 5k, half, and full marathons on October 18 in Columbus Ohio.