What you do not know because you are not me.

What you do not know because you are not me.

Michael Ring

On May 15^th I ran the Run for the Red Marathon in East Stroudsburg, PA.  I blogged about it here, here and here.  I had a great time. Yea, a great time in two ways, I beat my goal by 8 minutes and I had an enjoyable experience.  But I also learned some things, so….  

What I did not know till I ran the Run for the Red.

·        When you zoom in on this elevation graph you would find a lot of little ups.  Nothing is all down hill in the Poconos.

·        At mile 23 I really did not want to run down again.

·        I did not need 2,000,000 people cheering me on to make me run faster.

·        I really appreciated those 5 people every 2 miles that waved from their porch as I ran by.

·        Sometimes it is really easy to convince every cell in your body that you are an Olympian.  One of those times is when you just ran 26 miles and you enter an arena and you run 400 meters on a track.  It also helps when they announce your name on the PA system.

·        I thought I would be able to grab a salt packet from a fast food restaurant along the course.  There were no fast food restaurants along the course.  In fact, I did not pass a store of any type till I was a half a mile from the finish.  (I lived)

·        Driving home alone was a real worry.  I was able to totally put that out of my mind till 5 minutes after I crossed the finish line.

·        The greatest gift a hotel manager can give you is a super late check out after you run a marathon. 

·        The entry fee of this marathon plus the cost of the hotel was less than the entry fee to the ING NYC Marathon.  (Never mind the 9+1 program)

·        Including the post marathon shower and the 102 mile drive, I was home by 4 PM.  That is a few hours earlier than when I run New York.

So, there is a lot more to the world of marathoning than big cities, or even suburbia.  A race in the “country” can be very nice.