One down, one to go

This Saturday was the Hamptons Marathon, which I ran for the Lustgarten Foundation.  It was the smallest marathon I've run, with around 700 people running the marathon, and about 6500 people total running the marathon and half marathon.  As a result, there were times when I could only see one runner ahead of me, which made it feel more like a casual jog than a race. While I had an overall positive experience, there were definitely a few things that stood out to me that could be improved. 

First, while I'm sure it's a great charity, Lustgarten did not do a very good job of organizing the people running on its teams.  I got my singlet two days before the race, and there was nothing sent to anyone running to let us know if people were meeting up beforehand.  Turns out we had a table around mile 18 sponsored by the charity, but didn't find out until I hit mile 18 and someone said that it was our table. 

The biggest disappointment was that there was no way to meet up with anyone else running for them beforehand.  I ran into one person who was running for the same charity solely because he realized I was wearing the same shirt as he was.  We never saw anyone else.  

We stuck together for the whole race, as it turned out that he was running his first marathon, had a goal time in line with my goal to take this race easy so I'm still set for NYC, and neither of us felt like spending 26.2 miles alone.  Because of the small number of people, there were points in the race when we were the only two people visible, which definitely made it a challenge to keep going.  The lack of crowd running made it easier not to get pushed into a pace I didn't want to do, but at the same time, it also made the race feel more like a training run than a race.  

In any case, I came in around 5:10, which is much slower than my PR, but about where I targeted to make sure I didn't hurt myself in the race.  I had some type of flu for about 3 weeks that knocked me off my training for the month of September, so to be honest, I was apprehensive about being able to finish the entire race.  This always seems to happen in September, whether it's illness or injury.  Going to have to kick this pattern eventually.  

So, marathon #3 in the books...now on to #4 and then the challenge of half Ironman training in winter.  Go time!