Route 66 Marathon

Marilynn and I drove up to Wylie (just east of Dallas) Friday and spent the night with George and Shannon and their family. On Saturday, we drove up to Tulsa, OK for the Route 66 Marathon on Sunday. I had never been to Tulsa and somehow thought the place was flat. The first half of the marathon criss-crossed the city and was up and down hills. At the 13.1-mile point, we got to street along the Arkansas River. Then, it up just past the 20-mile marker and then back to the finish line at 26.2. The temperature at the start of the marathon was 43 and at the finish it was in the 60's. My goal was to break 6 hours. Except for walking through the aid stations every two miles, I ran the entire distance. I expect the hills slowed me down some and the "up the river" segment was into a headwind. The last 6 miles was downwind and it got rather warm. I ended up finishing in 6:00:20. I had really expected to finish in about 5:45, but I'll take any marathon finish. After the race, we drove back to Wylie and then drove back to Huntsville this afternoon.

I went to Nautilus and worked out this evening. Then, on the way to the track to get in a run, I stopped to gas up my truck. I got dizzy and almost fell. I drove over to the track, but was too dizzy to run and drove home, instead. My blood pressure was high, so I called my doctor. He said to go to the emergency room. I spent a couple hours there. They did a catscan and ran a lot of other tests and gave me an IV. All the tests came back negative and they concluded that I was dehydrated. I felt better after the IV and went to the track on the way home and ran a mile. No problem, I could have done more.