Long Run Solutions

Kentucky Derby Festival Marathon Review

What do you do when your marathon goals are stamped out by unseasonably warm weather? Crash, lick your wounds, and plan the next marathon. So, Minneapolis Marathon, here I come.....but I digress.

My wife and I made our first ever trip to Louisville, Kentucky this past weekend and we absolutely loved it! The unseasonably warm weather was terrible marathon weather with highs in the mid 80's, but incredibly nice vacationing weather.

Here is my review:

The course:

Not so easy. It is a really nice course with some cool features. Early on at around the three mile mark you get a taste of the Kentucky Hills inside of Iroquois Park. There are two significant hills inside of the park that will get the blood pumping.

The next feature is Churchill Downs. The course actually goes inside Churchill Downs and runs along the back stretch. After watching the Kentucky Derby for all these years, I consciously slowed down inside the Downs to take in the atmosphere.

 

 

Above is the race track, Corina and Kurt, and Kurt and I in the pre-race area

The Barbaro Memorial, the famous tulips, and Corina and I with the Wreath of Roses.

After exiting the park, the course takes aim on downtown Louisville over the next couple of miles before turning east toward Cherokee Park. Cherokee Park is a beautiful part of the course and not as challenging as it may look on the elevation map.

The final feature of note on the course is the trip across the bridge into Indiana and back. I found this to be a nice feature because it was so different that the rest of the course. Yes, the bridge adds a hill in both directions, but it is a very manageable incline. The final mile and a half is downtown and well supported by fans.

The fans:

As is typical in marathons now a days, the first half of the marathon is well supported and the fans thin out significantly after the half marathon split. When we took a right turn on Breckenridge Street it was as if we were running out into no where. But, all in all I was surprised by pretty decent support in the second half. One real highlight is at mile 22 at the turn toward the bridge. The fans are lining the streets and it is an adrenalin rush. These same fans are supporting you at mile 24 1/2 as you get back across the bridge.

Race organization:

It was great. One tip is that they tell you that you must be at the shuttle buses by 6 a.m. That is an entire 90 minutes before race time and not necessary. Based on what I saw, you could get there at 6:30 and get a ride without any problem.

The expo was not nearly as big or as good as the expo I remember in Nashville in 2008. However, the Country Music Marathon is an event with 25,000 to 30,000 runners. Everything was on a different scale.

The start line was well organized with the common problem of too few porta potties. But, I have no idea how you would ever have enough. The finish line was perfectly organized with plenty of food and beverages including the all important post race beer.

The medal:

Very cool.

The hotel:

We did not stay at the host hotel, but we really enjoyed our accommodations at the Marriott Residence Inn. I would highly recommend this hotel and it is an easy walk to the shuttle bus and an easy walk from the finish line. One tip is to ask for a room that faces the inside area, not the street. Not much of a view, but I heard the street can be a little noisy at night.

Overall:

We loved the race and loved the area. Both my wife and I would highly recommend this marathon and the Louisville area as a fun event and place to visit.

KDF Marathon Results

Kentucky Derby Festival (KDF) Marathon: well organized

KDF course: tough early

State of Kentucky: awesome

Kentucky Horse Park: spectacular

Marathon weather: SUCKED!

Tough day at the races for this crew and many more. We started off with an awe inspiring DNS by our up north representative Kurt J. Being up all night puking and ........ actually qualifies as a good excuse not to run. As for me, I overheated before mile 12, crashed before mile 13, forgave myself around mile 17, and finally after floundering for what seemed like hours, I ran strong the last two miles and finished in 3:45. Not even close to what I wanted. Corina had a nearly identical experience to me and also finished about 25 minutes off her pace at 4:25. I will post a more detailed race review soon.

KDF Marathon is upon us

Finally, mercifully the Kentucky Derby Festival Marathon is so close I can almost start running now. Saturday morning the gun goes off at 7:30 eastern time. The weather will be a factor with race time temps expected to be around 65 degrees. If I can hold my effort under 3:30, I will finish before 11:00 a.m. and avoid the 86 degree temperatures that are expected to take hold in the afternoon.

The website promises to post race results during and after the race. I will post my time on this website by mid-afternoon on Saturday. I'm planning on giving it my full effort and I will just have to see how I hold up under the heat. I detest built in excuses, but hot weather is about as good as the excuses get in marathon running.

The bib numbers:

• Me: #64
• Kurt: #1418
• Corina: #1144

Here is the link for 2009 results.

Well, all that is left to do is pray. So, get to it!

Me: #64

Who's Your Daddy?......#2

The Obama administration, and most especially President Obama, have been busy courting two bit dictators and leaders of failed states. And, right on cue, the obedient dominant media has been fawning over their efforts.

First, it was Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran. Despite the administrations efforts, he just isn't knuckling under to the Mr. Nice treatment. Nobody could have guessed that would happen.

Next, it was Hugo Chávez of Venezuela. Here is a real winner. Somewhere around 70% of Venezuela's oil revenue just disappears. Hmmmmm, I wonder where that goes. President Obama makes his best move with a hardy hand shake and an advertisement of Hugo's book and what does he get? He must be hoping that Chavez will no long say President Obama smells like President Bush. Good luck with that.

Finally, and taking the cake, is President Obama's buddy and leader of Cuba Raúl Modesto Castro. Right when the administration was bragging about an upcoming "thawing of relations" with Cuba, they had to go and ask that Cuba show a sign of reconciliation. Oh, that was a bad move. It didn't take Raul's famous older brother Fidel long to throw cold water on that idea.

For that I can't help but saying, "President Obama, who's you daddy?"

Who's Your Daddy?........#1

Talk about being outed. Perez Hilton, your basic wanna be, nobody, gay activist type has been acting himself this week. Here is a guy who has parlayed outing people into a "career".... of sorts.

Bring on Carrie Prejean, the reigning Miss California. Perez asks what she thinks about gay marriage and Carrie tells him. Oops, why didn't he say he wasn't actually looking for a genuine answer.

Which prompted me to ask, "Perez, who's your daddy?"

Here is a link to thevideo if you are interested.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XMvviFbkf0

The Countdown has begun

In less than one week, my wife and I will have completed the Kentucky Derby Festival Marathon in Louisville, KY. It seems like yesterday that this day would never come.

This morning we worked out indoors, side by side on treadmills at the local health club. What an incredible difference a week made in how we felt. Finally, we are both feeling more rested and like we will be fully recovered by next Saturday's marathon.

This picture illustrates why we did our mile repeats on a treadmill inside. This was taken after the first 6 inches on Friday. By the time the snow quit falling on Saturday we had somewhere around 14 inches at our house. And, it was the super wet and heavy stuff. The kind that will turn the grass green as it gives way to sunny skies and 70 degree weather this week.

We will run a total of 1 hour and 40 minutes over the next 5 days prior to the marathon. Sunday, I'll run 40 minutes and then 30 minutes on Tuesday and Thursday. A very easy week leading up to the big day.

So, what is really left to do? Mostly just to get our head on straight about meeting our goals and trusting in our training regimen. We have worked hard for six months and are ready to go. Now it's about visualizing and working through in our heads the challenges we can expect to face over the course of 26.2 miles.

About the Tea Parties

First of all, I'm not really concerned about how many references CNN and CNBC make to "tea bagging". Of course it is ridiculously immature, but I kind of like the idea that they are at least calling themselves out and admitting to their biases.

Second, I find it pretty disingenuous that this is being portrayed as mainly a "beat up Barack Obama" crusade. These Tea Parties do not exist because Barack Obama was elected. And oh by the way, if I'm wrong and that is why Tea Parties exists, then I'm glad Obama was elected. In fact, if he manages to galvanize support for getting spending under control, then God Bless President Obama.

Third, at least from my point of view, I don't want Rush Limbaugh on the side of the Tea Parties. I'm happy to admit that I love Rush's sense of humor. He makes me laugh. However, Rush was just a voice for the Republican Party this last election when he should have been railing against their unchecked thirst for our tax dollars. The Republican Party divorced it's conservative members during the second term of George Bush the younger's presidency.

If the Republican Party was a person (a small person) I would pick them up by the throat and tell them to stick it. Tax cuts are great, but it is more important to control spending. I'm sorry, maybe you didn't hear me....tax cuts are great, but it is more important to control spending. What is wrong with all of these loser politicians? And I'm talking to all of you loser Democrats, too.

The Tea Parties are about out of control spending that will bankrupt this country. Just because the Republicans did it and didn't seem to care does not mean it's alright for the Democrats. Tea Parties are about people finding their voice and saying NO to out of control spending.  The spending binge started in the 1980's and it is now accelerating at an astonishing rate. We are truly spending our children's future.

I for one, am not OK with it.

Marathon Tapers should feel easier

Don't get me wrong, I would classify what I am about to say as whining. But that won't stop me.

After 5+ months of training and building up for a hopefully personal record marathon, I am so happy to be at that stage where I am tapering off on my training. However, it seems like I should feel like superman every time out. Tonight, I ran for only 27 minutes and it felt like a grind the whole way. Are you kidding? How could 27 minutes feel like a grind to me?

Looking back at other marathon tapers, I've had this feeling before. I had been running 8.5 to 10 miles on Mondays and Thursdays and when your running that kind of distance, it isn't uncommon for it to take 3 to 5 miles to feel warmed up and comfortable. By the time I'm finished, I've forgotten about the sluggishness of the early part of the run. This week my longest run will be 5 miles so maybe I should expect to feel sluggish.

It is a weird thing though. I look forward to this time because of the grind of training as I build toward a marathon, but now that I'm here it feels like a grind to be tapering. Can't win I guess.

Easter message 2009

At my church, we have a traditional greeting on Easter morning. Instead of "hi, how are you" answered by "good, and you", people say:

"Christ has risen"

which others respond to by saying

"He has risen indeed"

This says it all on Easter and it says it all as to who we are as Christians. Without Christ having risen, our faith would be dead. Christ has risen, He has risen indeed!

Don't Rub Your Antlers on the Swing

Every once in a while I get a video I have to share. I don't know how long this one has been around and I don't know the story, but it is definitely worth checking out. Enjoy.

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