“If you want to accomplish the goals of your life, you have to begin with the spirit.”

– Oprah Winfrey

I can’t believe I’m opening my last blog post for the 2009 Nationwide Better Health Columbus Marathon with a quote from Oprah Winfrey, but it seemed very appropriate. Finishing a marathon or a half marathon is a great accomplishment, and without the right spirit it would be difficult to stay motivated. That’s part of the idea behind the Nationwide Better Health Columbus Marathon Spirit Awards; recognizing people who have overcome significant obstacles to achieve their goal of participating in the event.  So… don’t tell anyone, but I agree with Oprah on this one. You need to begin with the spirit in order to accomplish anything.

Now that the race has come and gone, I thought I’d use this final post to update you guys on my report card and share my race day experience with you. First, my report card:

1. Run two half marathons in 2009 and at least three 5K races

Grade: trending toward an A+

At the last update, I had run the Capital City Half Marathon and the Race for the Cure. Now I have added the Nationwide Better Health Columbus Half Marathon and the Homestretch 10-miler to my list of races in 2009. I’ve probably already exceeded this goal by subbing a 10-mile race for two 5Ks, but just to be safe I’m going to run another race – at least a 5K – before the end of the year.

2. Finish the Nationwide Better Health Columbus Half Marathon in less than 137 minutes

Grade: C

I improved my time from May, but didn’t meet this goal. That’s mostly because I spent about 6 weeks this summer injured and unable to train. Back in August, I said when I was finally healthy again that my revised goal was to finish the race without injury, and I accomplished that.

3. Reach my high school in-season weight of 160 lbs by race day in October

Grade: D

Again, the six weeks that I lost hurt my chances of hitting this goal. On race morning, I weighed 171 lbs, about 6 lbs more than my weight on the day I graduated and 11 lbs over my goal of weighing the same as I did during soccer season in high school. I’m going to extend this goal into December and revise my weight target to 165. That way I’ll be able to potentially get down to 160 in time for the spring races.

By my calculations that works out to a C average, which would be enough to keep me eligible, but nothing I’d write home about. Let’s not dwell on it and move on to my race day experience.

I wedged myself into the starting corral with my one of my closest friends – and a 2009 Nationwide Better Health Columbus Marathon Spirit Award winner – Aaron Irwin and his sister Jocelyn. This was Aaron’s first half marathon and my second, but his sister is an accomplished marathoner who ran Boston a few years ago. It probably pained her to move so slowly to keep pace with us, but I had warned her ahead of time that I wasn’t too proud to ask her to slow down. As the starting gun sounded, we took off our old sweats and tossed them into the crowd like everyone else. The sight of 15,000 people all throwing clothes in the air reminded me of middle-aged women at a Wayne Newton concert.

It took us almost five minutes to cross the starting line, but once we did, we set off at a nice even pace. The first familiar face I saw in the crowd was at Mile 1… my wife Jennifer was standing there shivering, but still smiling.

Those next two miles heading east on Broad Street were an easy run and got more and more scenic as we got deeper into the course. At the corner of Parkview and Broad we saw Aaron and Jocelyn’s parents, who snapped a few pictures of us turning north onto Parkview. As we headed up the street, the road got a lot narrower and everyone bunched together – it was snug, but still comfortable. About halfway up Parkview I saw my boss Jim, who gave me a shout of encouragement. I also got a high-five from Governor Strickland, who was standing on his front lawn with First Lady Frances Strickland cheering the runners on.

The run through the rest of Bexley was one of the highlights of the morning. The crowds were vocal, supportive, and very familiar faces to my running partners and me. During that three-mile stretch, we saw Aaron and Jocelyn’s parents one more time, and some other people that you most likely won’t know, but I want to give them a shout out, anyway – Gerry and Eileen, Susan H, Tom B, Ted S, and several other familiar faces were all cheering us on, with several other people screaming out Aaron’s and Jocelyn’s names as we ran past. We stopped for a few pictures, chatted with friends in the crowd and generally just enjoyed that stretch of the course.

Since most of our friends were lining the street in Bexley, the turn from Nelson Road past Franklin Park Conservatory and back to Broad Street gave us a chance to talk more without having to look for friends in the crowd. I told a couple of stories about my kids, Jocelyn saw a new friend either in the crowd or on the course every three minutes and Aaron kept plugging along, looking like an Abercrombie & Fitch model the whole time. We also caught up with Nicole G and ran with her for a couple miles.

I saw Jen once more as we made the turn south from Broad onto Monroe and then West onto Bryden, where we made a quick stop at the port-a-potties. While approaching City Center, we got a few words of encouragement from another friend of ours (a collective friend, not a “friend of ours” in the Sopranos “friend-of-ours” way) Emily H, who said that she has been reading the blog and that she read about Aaron’s Spirit Award along with the nine other amazing stories on the website.

The run south from downtown into German Village was pretty uneventful, save for about half a dozen guys from Aaron’s old basketball team screaming for him from the sidewalk close to The Book Loft on South Third Street. As we came to Schiller Park, I got a “Who Dey” from my friend Jon M, who was tracking his wife and sister-in-law as they were running their first marathon that morning.  Our lap around Schiller was a nice run and provided a great interlude to the uphill run back into downtown.

We could see the Nationwide building – our last turn before heading to the finish line – as we headed North through the Brewery District. I had to stop and stretch my leg a couple times, but was able to recover enough to handle the slight incline back into downtown. The final turn onto Nationwide Boulevard was like the scene in The Wizard of Oz when everything turns from black and white into color. It felt like there were ten thousand people cheering during that last 400 meters. We saw Aaron and Jocelyn’s parents, our friend Kevin R, and heard several people in the crowd screaming our names as we accelerated toward the finish line. The three of us crossed the finish line together in 2:29:02 feeling happy, exhausted, emotional, hungry, tired, proud, sore, and cold, but also looking forward to next year.

I’d love to hear your stories about race day. Please use the comment space below to tell us about your race day experience.  Thanks everyone!!!

##########################

There are a lot of people who have helped me over the past several months with the blog – either directly or indirectly. I thought a good way to close my last post of the year would be to thank a few who have helped produce the blog, given me advice, or kept me motivated:

• Kara, Marwan, John, Christa, Todd, Carrie, Tim, Matt, Lisa, Kevin, Joe, Bill, Sara, Julie, Jocelyn, and all of my other runner friends: Thanks for the knowledge about Gu, Body Glide, stretching, and countless other things that I used in my training.
• The team at Huber+Co: Thanks for being willing to work the blog into the website. BTW – the TweetMyTime idea is a winner. That was awesome. My wife was able to track my half marathon progress because she could see my tweets via the Facebook application on her BlackBerry at the starting line and 10K mark. On a side note, had you told me fifteen years ago that someday I would write a sentence that included the words wife, half marathon, tweets, Facebook application, Blackberry, and 10K, I would’ve assumed I was writing it from a padded room.
• Sarah Irvin Clark and Scott Weaver: Thanks for all of the Facebook support, the tweets, and the traffic steerage to the blog. You are consummate professionals and have been a pleasure to work with.
• Ray Smithberger: I love the report card idea and will probably carry that forward in a few different parts of my life.
• Dr. Dennis Schone and Dr. Tony Blevins at HealthFirst Chiropractic in Pickerington, Sara Jacobowitz at Hands On Therapy in Gahanna and Dr. Jeff Bare: Without your help, I probably would have spent Sunday morning curled up on my couch with ice packs all over my body. I owe you each a huge debt of gratitude.
• Ted Hill: Your guest blog spot was hilarious. Thanks for being willing to put yourself out there and to needle me a little bit. Maybe next year I’ll join you for 26.2… Ask me again in a few months.
• Randy Benedict and the team at Second Sole: You guys REALLY know your stuff and have been a tremendous help. Without reservation, I’d recommend to any new runner that they head out to your store in Gahanna to absorb as much knowledge as they can from you guys.
• All of the readers and people who commented: You are the reason the blog works. Without comments and engagement from readers, then the blog is just a bunch of words on a screen. The comments and hits to the site are what really indicate whether the blog is useful or just the blogger’s useless drivel.
• Aaron Irwin: It was an inspiration to run 13.1 miles with you. I enjoyed every minute of it and look forward to us maybe doing it again next year.
• Jocelyn Irwin: Thanks for throttling back your normal pace to keep us company on Sunday.
• The brains of this operation, Ashley Heilman: A lot of readers probably don’t realize the amount of work this blog takes. The content of the blog is my style and my personality, but Ashley is the one who takes the time to turn my rambling commentary and fungus-like jokes into something that’s actually readable. Your countless hours spent improving the blog have not gone unnoticed. Thank you for all of your work over the last several months.
• My family: Thanks for the support and the comments, especially early on in the blog’s life when you were probably the only people reading it.
• My wife, Jen: I don’t think I even need to say it, which it good because words wouldn’t come close to expressing it. Thanks for being supportive through this whole crazy thing.

Take care everyone, and I hope to see you all next year!