by A couple of weeks ago, I did a crazy thing and signed up for the Frankenthon Monster Marathon. A friend and I had talked ‘way back about how fun it is to be on the ground floor of a new marathon, how much we liked the race director for doing it, what fun it was to have a new marathon here in Austin. So when the RD sent out a note on the HCTR listserve as a reminder, I was like, “Why not?”
So even though the race was the week after my 50K at Palo Duro, I signed up.
I felt kind of weird about it so I didn’t advertise it. It was going to be interesting to see what I had in my legs, so I decided I was just going to have fun and say I was there. Who cared if I was DFL?
It turned out to be a pretty good day. Oh, I was slow as could be. The first loop was not so bad (1:40 for the 8-something miles) but I added 17 minutes to the second one (can you say “ouch”? Nothing happened, per se; I was just suddenly very tired). Typically for me, the third loop was only a bit slower than the second at 2:01, giving me a grand total of 5:39.
But the great thing was I truly had fun out there. I’d never run out at Brushy Creek park, and I thought it was lovely — I’ll definitely add that trail into my cache of great spots. The out-and-backs were really enjoyable; you got to see everybody multiple times.
It was quite the hybrid of road and trail racing. There was much more concrete than I’d imagined there’d be for running in a park, yet the vibe was trail-runner easy going. And I was truly impressed by the people I met. Holy cow…there were some heavy duty marathoners there! There was a very nice couple (Keith and Rebecca, I believe) who’d done the 50-miler out at Palo Duro the weekend before and never failed to give me a high five or a positive word every time we passed each other (ahem, every time they passed me). I met Paula who founded the 50 States Club; she’s done more than 260 marathons while her husband has logged over 400! Just standing in the line for the bathroom, there were four women in line…and between us, we had more than 100 marathon finishes! Amazing. And there were some old friends there I hadn’t run with since back in the Mixon/early Sisson days and several of my new HCTR buddies out there as well. Lots of good people.
My husband and son surprised me by coming out and cheering me in. I felt really good; the temperature was perfect and my legs, while short on get-up-and-go, felt very good. We finished off the day with lounging at home and a Longhorn victory, me in my cool new Frankenthon shirt.
I’m glad I did it.
