Soldier Marathon

We spent Thursday night in Mobile, Alabama.  I got up early Friday morning and ran laps around the hotel parking lot before driving up to Columbus, Georgia for the Soldier Marathon on Saturday.  We had perfect weather for the marathon (50's and 60's).  There were 700+ running the full marathon and many more running the half and 5K.  I think about 2,500 total.  I finished in a slow 6:34:09, which placed me 4th of 5 in the 70 to 74 age group.  They changed the course somewhat from last year.  This year, it crossed the river and went into Alabama for a short distance.  My wife had lived on post at Fort Benning in the late 50's, so we spent some time finding her house and some other haunts.  We spent Saturday night in Phenix City, Alabama (across the river from Columbus) and then drove down to Hammond, Louisiana on Monday.  We stopped in Mobile and found the church where my parents were married in 1921.  It is still an active church, but in a bad part of downtown Mobile.  It is so bad and there is a chain link fence with locked gates surrounding the church.  Then, we detoured from I-10 and visited the Mississippi beaches near Biloxi.  I ran some highway from the hotel in Hammond yesterday evening and survived the traffic.  After driving back from Hammond today, I ran laps at the track and then worked out at Iron Works.