Bismarck Marathon

Time: 4 hours 11 minutes 53 seconds

Pacesetter was the word of the day today. I meet a 65 year old man named Dave Hurley at the start of the race. He was running his 50th marathon today. As I normally do, I got towards the back of the pack to start the race and mingled with several different people. As I passed some of the slower runners, I caught back up with Dave. While running with him for a few miles I discovered that not only was today his 50th marathon but he was trying to qualify for the Boston Marathon. He had qualified on several other occasions but had not been able to qualify for the last three years. I made a decision at that point that if I could help him along, I would. We ran the first half of the marathon in 1:57. This meant that he was well on pace to make the 4:15 he needed.

We continued on together for the next four miles with no problems. By this point we were at mile 17. He was well on pace to make it. By this point though, I was struggling. I have developed a mild case of tendonitis in my right foot and it was really getting painful. He offered to stop and remove one of his ankle braces and let me use it the rest of the way. I refused! I had helped him along this far, I was not going to do anything to slow him down at this point. I even told him that if he needed to take off without me to go ahead. He too refused. I helped get him this far, and he did not want to leave me now. It was a real case of role reversal. I pushed him in the first 17 miles, now he was helping to push me.

We got to the 20 mile point in just under three hours. I was very happy. I was very confident that we could get the last six miles done in an hour and fifteen minutes. Dave continued to push me along over the next three miles, but at this point, the pain in my right foot was too much. I had to take some walking breaks.

When I got to the finish line in under 4:15, having never passed Dave up, I knew that he had made his time. It was a lot of fun to swap stories with Dave over the twenty or so miles we ran together and I am really thrilled that I could help him qualify for Boston. Good luck Dave, and if you qualify for 2009 and 2010 maybe I’ll see you there.

This one makes 5 marathons completed with 179 left.

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