3 - Steamtown Marathon, Scranton, Pennsylvania - October 10, 2004

The 2004 Steamtown Marathon was the first race in which I broke 4 hours for my time!  AND my Dad was there to see me finish!  Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures ;(

Where was Mark when I needed him to take a photo of me at the finish line? Well, to try to make up for his deficiencies, he copied the photo above from the Steamtown Marathon web site.

Prior to this marathon, I was stuck at a marathon time of around 4:30.  I always "hit the wall" at about mile 20. Then I crawled my way to the finish.

But this marathon was to be different. My goal was to break four hours.  At the start of the race, I met two local guys who were trying to break a 4-hour time.  I asked them if I could run with them, and they agreed (this is Pennsylvania remember!).  One of the men was wearing the new Garmin running GPS.  It was one of the first running GPS units that Garmin made.  He had set the Garmin for us to finish in 4 hours; every time we when off the set pace to finish in 4 hours, an alarm would sound notifying us to either slow down or speed up.

What really surprised me was the fact that the Garmin almost always told us to slow down — unconsciously, we were running too fast. Then I realized it: this had been my problem all along.  I went out too fast in the beginning of the marathon, then hit the wall and crashed.  Well, this time when we got to mile 20, we were 3 hours into the race. Unlike past marathons, however, I didn't hit the wall. I wasn't even very tired!  I felt strong and knew I could run the last 6 miles of the marathon in an hour.

Well, I did it. My net or chip finish time was 3:55:14.