Virginia - 2006 MCM
The first four miles of the marathon were through northern Virginia. Based on what other runners had told me I was planning to walk these four miles, because of the crowds of runners. The crowds weren’t there, so Olga and I ended up running from the start line. I wasn’t thrilled about that, but I also wasn’t worried. My goal was 12:30 miles, so that’s what we shot for.
The first two miles of the race is up hill. On the elevation map it looks like a mountain. Maybe not exactly Everest, but definitely big. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the mountain was just a hill. It wasn’t even a difficult hill.
The coolest part of running in VA was the other runners. People were in close proximity and still had enough energy to talk. Everyone was still in good spirits. There were also a few spectators lining the sides of the roads cheering everyone on. That was our first taste of the crowds. It was nice. Real nice.
October weather is a little chilly. The start of the race was around 9am, so all the runners had to stand around in the chill morning air. Then once the race started we were all running and getting hot and sweaty. This leads to the predicament of what should you wear. In the morning you want to stay warm in some comfortable sweat pants. Once you’re running you want to stay cool - definitely not sweat pants. There isn’t a very good middle ground there. I ended up being cold in the morning, then being comfortable during the run. (I also handed off one of my shirts to my family part of the way through the race). A lot of other people wore old sweat clothes, which they would take off and throw to the edge of the street as they warmed up. I heard that volunteers pick up all the discarded clothes, clean them and give them to shelters and homeless people. Pretty cool.
The only clothes that I planned to throw away was a pair of gloves. I really don’t like it when my hands get cold, so I decided on gloves a few weeks before the run. I looked into runners gloves, but they cost more than I wanted to spend. I decided on buying some gardener gloves from the grocery store. It cost about two dollars, and once I warmed up I would be able to throw them to the side without feeling like I wasted much money. Instead of tossing them, I ended up donating them to the good cause of Olga. She had a runny nose and wanted to use them as tissue for the first part of the race. I’m glad she didn’t’ save them to give them back after we finished running.