Marathon Morning
Whew, I didn’t run the marathon this morning, but I feel tired enough to have. One of my college friends dropped by this weekend to support his brother who was running in the Bank of America Marathon in Tampa Bay (a convenient excuse to visit Florida ^_^). As it happened, the race was scheduled to start at 6 AM this morning, so we were up at 5…with about 4 hours of sleep since going to bed around 1 constitutes “getting to sleep early” when you have a friend in town. Unfortunately, we were woken up not by our alarm clocks, but by the sound of rain pounding against the windows. Thankfully the rain had eased to a drizzle by the time the runners set off, and we managed to get downtown on time to see the start of the race. The officials could have done a better job, as one of the contestants who had been within the top 4 runners ended up being disqualified because he couldn’t understand the confusing nature of the directions in the an area where the half-marathon split from the full marathon. He was clearly a great runner and it was unfortunate to see someone disqualified because the course was poorly labeled.
My friend’s brother did quite well, finishing the half marathon in about 1:40, ahead of the main pack, but everyone had a good time and I’m sure plenty of money was raised for charities. The weather could have been better, but at least it wasn’t anything like the sweltering heat here in the summer (probably why the marathon was scheduled so early in the morning). Now if I can just manage to stay awake for the rest of the day…
