Yeah, Yeah, Yeah!

Oklahoma City has chosen to honor some of it's most famous residents with an Alley. Not a road, not an avenue or a boulevard but an Alley.

Pick of the Litter

From the phone of Amanda: This is the "Volunteer String Band", an unlikely-looking but incredibly talented bluegrass group. We stumbled upon them on our first night in Nashville and deliberately returned the second night to enjoy their mix of traditional favorites and original genius such as "Ain't Going Back to Gatlinburg". On the second night we won a free CD for being the most enthusiastic audience members, but for a band this good you don't have to fake it. Google them and see for yourself!

Devils in Disguise

Amanda and I sitting at Elvis' piano in RCA Studio B in Nashville. The studio where he, along with many other musical greats including Roy Orbison, Dolly Parton and the Everly Brothers recorded hit after hit. Awesome!

New Shoes!

Straight from the phone of Amanda: We got matching shoes and we don't even care because they're so darned cute!

Welcome to Dollywood

Chasing that rainbow all the way to Eastern Tennessee and Dollywood. The Dolly Parton Museum was worth the trip all by itself. Much fun was had by all.

Labyrinth of Values

Straight from the phone of Amanda: The Unclaimed Baggage Resale Center in Scottsboro, Alabama was a joy and truly worth the drive. So many bargains and exciting treats people have sadly lost for us to gleefully find. I felt sorry for the brides and cheerleaders whose lovely days were spoiled, but man do I love my new shoes! They even had a museum of exciting finds, including Hoggle, the Jim Henson original, along with other artefacts from the film. Much fun, highly recommended.

Go Team Jesus!

From the phone of Amanda: This is the terrifying assortment of stickers available at the gas station along the Alabama highway. I can't decide which I like best!

Stars Fell on Alabama

Just over the border in Alabama. Making good time. There's hope we'll make it to the Unclaimed Baggage Center after all.

The return of the rubbish blogger

I have been pants, but I'll try to be good henceforth. We've just crossed from Louisiana to Mississippi and we're angling up towards Alabama. We've seen the space station, swam off the Gulf Coast, seen alligators, plantations, heard much jazz and eaten our weight in great food. I'll bring the whole shebang up to date with more words and pictures when we get some wi-fi access.

Bow hunting, no guts, no glory

There was neither guts, nor glory. It was probably for the best.

Don't Ask

Don't tell.

Right on Target

Knowing that they would have some British guests the Clays endeavoured to make us feel at home through the choice of target for the potato cannon.

Pennie the Outlaw

Your money or your beer. Either way really.

Fourth of July Battle

The British are coming.

This is a puddle...

...Yes, that is a duck...

It has been raining. A lot. For days actually, so many that some record for the most days of rain in a row set in the 1930s was broken.

Normally I quite like rain. I like to run in it and then come home and change into nice warm, dry clothes. I like donning wellies and sploshing about or being smug under an umbrella while trying not to poke anyone's eye out. I don't, as it turns out, like it all that much when it goes on for 17 days without a day off. Nothing dries properly, the soft furnishings all feel positively soggy, the TV crackles when you first switch it on because of all the moisture trapped in its works and you're constantly damp because all the towels are still wet and your clothes have the kind of dampness which is probably a great breeding ground for mildew.

Not only is there this personal sensation of general discomfort but you can't go out. The most I had been outside until yesterday was running from Amanda's car to the library - a whopping 200m. Drainage here is rubbish, as beautifully demonstrated by the duck setting up camp in a puddle so big that it (a duck whom, I would have thought, would have a great deal of experience of bodies of water) has mistaken it for a pond. Until this morning I hadn't been able to run, cycle or even walk outside as trying to move through Norman under your own steam in the rain involves rather more wading than I think is necessary unless you're on one of those outward bounds courses or fishing and actually I'm not even sure that either of those are necessary to begin with! I hadn't even managed really to get to the gym to run as everytime I thought it might be alright to nip out a dark cloud appeared on the horizon looking ready to release raindrops so large that just one would be enough to wash your hair clean of shampoo with and probably hurt a bit in the process. Consequently I've probably been a bit of a nightmare and was even reduced on day 17 to alternating stamping my feet, waving my fist and screaming in frustration at the rain.

Fortunately we've been given a bit of reprieve, a strange gold disc appeared in the sky yesterday afternoon. Amanda and I were frightened but then grew to love its strange warmth and the odd sensation of being dry that it afforded us. I'm not sure how long this is going to last, or whether the giant cloud is going to swing back around but for now I'm happy and, until the puddle dries out, so is that duck.

Pride

I am proud all the way up from my toes! Happy Pride.

Race Report

So I did it, I finished the marathon. It took me longer than I had hoped but the weather and my hips were conspiring against me so it's not bad considering.

The race started out well. I stuck with the 4:45 group until the first water table where I lost them. Retrospectively I probably should have actually signed up to run with this group or at least tried harder to stick with them rather than thinking I could pick up the pace, but we live and learn and the marathon is nothing but a learning experience.

So the next few miles went well. Up to the 10k marker I was on pace for the 4:45, I had hoped for (and maybe even a little quicker), seeing Amanda, Susan and Sandra (Amanda's mother) really spurred me on to dig deep at mile 7 but then it all started to go wrong. The hip trouble I thought I had beaten with diligent yoga and stretching all week started to nag and being not even a third of the way through this was not a good sign. As the half-marathoners turned away from the marathon course half a mile later, I found myself wondering what on earth I'd done and questioning whether choosing to do the full over the half was such a wise decision after all. Still, there was no going back and I decided pull back a little and aim for an 11 minute pace which would still get me to the finish around 4:45.

Every mile marker I passed had a sign next to it telling me what I was on pace for and until Lake Hefner it always read "You are on pace for a 4h34m - 4h47m finish". At Lake Hefner the 4:45 group came up behind me and I knew I was in trouble. If they were coming up behind me, I must have slowed down significantly and I couldn't even contemplate moving any faster than I already was. I resolved to try and keep with them and though I managed to stick with them for several miles, beyond Lake Hefner and through Nichols Hills, it was futile.

Up to this point I'd eaten gummy bears for the first 10 miles, alternated water with Powerade at the aid stations and started taking energy gels every 4 or so miles from mile 10. I'd had 2 at this stage and really should have been taking another but the idea of squirting a whole packet of warm honey into my mouth made me queasy. I gave myself one more mile to steel myself for the gloop, thinking of a story Amanda's dad had told me about thinking he could get away without anymore energy gel in a marathon and winding up staggering into the crowd with 200y to go. That was not going to be me so I toughened up and took it. These things are disgusting, but they work. Although I felt like crap I don't think it was The Wall, from what I've heard the wall feels like literally running into a wall, what I had was more of a gradual deterioration and steadily increasing hip pain.

By mile 21 I was actually dying, or at least I thought I was. The sun was high in the sky by this point and the mercury must have been pushing 25C and rising. I thought if I could just keep the 4:45 group in my sights it would be OK and tried to play mind games with myself by mentally breaking up the last 6 miles into 2 5K races which at this stage should be a walk in the park.

It wasn't. The 4:45 group pulled away and I didn't even care. There was nothing I could have done to keep up. The finish time indicator ticked up into the next bracket 4h47m-5h00m and I didn't even care. Now I just wanted to finish.

Although one of my main goals was just to get to the end without walking outside of aid stations this was just not going to happen today so I instilled a new strategy for the last 5 miles. I had on my Garmin and worked out that if I could keep to a 14 minute pace for the last 5 miles I'd still get in under 5 hours. So I instigated a new strategy allowing myself to power walk until the lap pace read 14 and then run until it was back down to around 12.

At mile 23, Amanda, Susan and Sandra were there again cheering for me and I found the energy to run to them and stop long enough to stretch my hip and tell them I wanted to die. I ran enough until I was out of sight and went back to my walk run routine. Somewhere in this last 6 miles the hip pain was so overwhelming that I actually had to lie down on the grass verge and stretch my hips out which allowed me to run a little further. I don't remember where it's all a bit of a blur.

By mile 25 I was ready to call it quits and just stroll the rest of the way but I passed the final 25 mile marker and saw the time. It read somewhere around 4:48 and I knew that if I could just run the rest of the way I'd squeak in under 5 hours. So I did. I'm not sure how I managed it, but hearing the crowds at the finish line and finally turning the corner and seeing the finish line made me find that spurt of running left in me.

As I drew nearer to the finish I saw it tick over the 5 hour mark and was briefly despondent until I remembered that it had taken me 2 minutes to cross the start line and that my chip time would reflect this. Just then, I saw Amanda, Susan and Sandra again unexpectedly, yelling and cheering for me and telling me I could do it and then I really knew I could.

I must have run an 8m30s pace in that last .22 miles and it felt much faster!! I did it though, I got my sub 5 with a grand chip-time of 4:58:20.

I'll speed up next time!

Placings, Split Times and Chip Times, Oh My!

Summary

number of finishers:	1255
number of females:	545
number of males:	710
average time:	04:39:25

overall place:	901 out of 1281
division place:	62 out of 101
time:	5:00:40
pace:	11:29
chiptime:	4:58:20
10k:	1:07:21
15k:	1:41:33
half:	2:23:10
25k:	3:02:13
30k:	3:40:56

Race for the Prize

Sprint finish! I realized I'd really have to pull my finger out to make sub-5 hours and just made it. I'd hoped for a little faster but my hips weren't playing ball from miles 10ish onwards. The 27°C temp didn't help much either.

23 Miles

I actually wanted to die at this point. Even the mind games that there's only a little 5k left did me no good.