70-30 Marathon Pool

 

The race was awesome!  Great weather and great sights.  It seems I still don't know how to run within my limits, though.  :-)
 
I was doing 8:00/mi. until around mile 13, and a nagging muscle injury (IT band) reared its head, soon followed by some nast cramping.  So that made for some real drama, at least, because I had to dig really deep to keep going at that point, with many miles still to go.  Managed to keep going, but there were points when the cramping was so bad that I not only couldn't run, but literally could not walk until I stopped the intense spasms.   The best was the finish line, though.
 
Believe me, I was not trying to be entertaining.  I was in pain, and I wanted done, but there I was in sight of the finish line and I could not calm my legs down enough to walk to the finish.  It was like that the whole last mile, and now there I am about 30 yards from the line, and I am looking up at the time and realizing that I am about to miss my chance to beat my previous best by just seconds.  So I grab my dead, stiff, left leg with my two arms, get it off the ground and start stumble-hopping.  The crowd starts going nuts, blowing air horns and screaming for me, and I make it across the line.  It was sooo cool!
 
And on top of that the clock time showed I had missed a personal best, BUT ... I later checked my official chip time (not the "gun" time that was on the clock) and find out that I beat my previous best by 43 seconds .  So it was worth the pain!

I finished in 4:03:04 (official chip time) which makes Lisa Bruno the lucky winner of $101 with a guess of 4:03:10.  Only 6 seconds off ... n ot bad guesswork!  Of course the Alzheimer's Association also wins.  I sent them 70% of the pot for a total of $234.
 

The local TV station NBC4 has live traffic cams' on the web, a few of which are pointed at streets that will be flooded with runners, rather than cars on race day.  If you are up at 7AM on Saturday, 3/29, this link will help you find the cameras:  http://users.rcn.com/franksnyder/cameras.htm

... and $234 for the Alzheimer's Association.     
Thank you very much for your support!  Check this blog for the "race report".
Race day (29th) forecast here: Washington, DC Forecast .

What if 2 times are equidistant from the actual finishing time?    In that case, if there the total number of guesses is an odd number, then the lower time wins.    If it is an even number of guesses, then the higher time wins.

There will be a winner.   I will use an algorithm that is based on the number of players in the game and the dollar amounts,  but I can't describe it in this post, due to a character limit.  Click here to see the official scoring if I "DNF".

Choose any, or as many, free blocks as you want for the low, low price of $5.  Each block is a guess at my finishing time in the  Sun Trust National Marathon on Saturday, March 29th. The closest block to my actual finishing time (over or under) wins 30% of the pool - 70% benefits the Alzheimer's Association.*  Buy more blocks, more benefit for my charity, and more chance that you could win. 

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*Upper limit on winnings is $200.

This will be my third marathon run.  First time out I finished in 4:03:47; second time in 4:25:07; this time ... anybody's guess!.  (As brokers say, "past performance does not predict future returns"). To improve your odds, buy more than one block and spread the guesses around a bit.  

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My finishing time will be posted to this blog, but you can get independent verification at the SunTrust Marathon  site after the race.