Well my *real* goal was to finish the marathon yesterday in 5 hours, but deep down I wanted to get under 4:30. I'm really hurting today, but I crossed the line with a chip time of 4:27:10, so I'm pretty happy with how things went :)

I ran with my buddy Mike at a 10 min/mile pace all the way to 24 miles, but he was in the zone and told him to just go cause I was really starting to feel it. Throughout training he was battling a really painful problem with his left knee, so if he stopped running we feared the pain would appear and he'd be in real trouble. Around 24 miles I started to feel stomach cramps at the pace we were going so I just couldn't keep going with him. He crossed the line at 4:23:52, which was just awesome.

The weather was holding out until we got to about 4 miles, and then it started to just pour. When that combined with the really skinny streets around lake Calhoun (think giant puddles) we all had cold, sopping wet feet, and a hell of a wind to deal with. All in all though I think the temperature and rain helped, but it really sucked for a while there.

 So I'm really happy with how things went, but I am really hurting today. I didn't expect this much pain, but our longest training run (~21 miles) took us about 4:20, so we really pushed ourselves during the race.

We're talking about doing a half-marathon in Arizona this winter, but I'm not sure if I'll be doing the full thing again. However, it is pretty damn fun to cross that line, so I guess you never know...