25 thousand plus runners, first the elite woman took off with 17 minutes head-start, then elite men, then sub-3, sub-4, sub-5 and the rest. I came early to the corrals; but I saw a cute girl with my same color bib and group number, we start talking and after a few minutes we realized we were standing way behind our spot. Darned! I could not move up before the gun shoot. I left the starting line with the 4 hours group. It was about watching not to fall, pushing and cutting in front of others to try to move ahead. My heart rate was up and did not control it for the first 6 miles. It was a jungle out there. I run hard to catch-up and join the group of about 20 that were pulled by the 3:20 rabbit sponsored by cliff. The course is mostly flat but has several tricky turns that make you slow down. The night before rained but the sun came out in the morning. A cold breeze was blowing. It was a perfect weather. The view of the course is like the course itself, flat. No parks, no green areas, no bridges, no historic buildings, no nice views. I think the most important point was the Memorial Coliseum and we didn’t even pass close by. I concentrated to follow the rabbit and didn’t bother to check my split times. By mile 15 the telephone company sprint offered free telephone calls to your family anywhere in the nation. A volunteer run next to me, dialed and gave me the phone. My daughter answered and she could not believe I was running and talking with her. We both were laughing in the phone. By the wall mark, mile 20, reality checked. I was getting dehydrated, and my calves starting to hurt badly. By mile 23 I let the rabbit go. I slowed down and thoughts about stopping and dropping out crossed my mind. A solo runner passed me by. It looked like he was running slowly; it looked like he was fresh with easy strides. I followed him right behind, I swear I was one second behind. He was not running slowly, he had a perfect running form. Mile 24 he had a cramp and he pulled off. I kept running. Mile 25 he came back and is running next to me. He told me that shook off the cramp and his wife is in the next curve waiting for him. He saw his wife, hurry up, gave her a kiss and took off to the finish line. I hold on and crossed the line running.

The statistics: 10K 0:46:24; Half 1:39:07 NEW PR!; 30K 2:21:05 NEW PR; finish 3:25:29 NEW PR! Overall pace 7:50minutes/mile. Awesome!

That night, at the hotel I saw the Kenyans walk funny, I realized that they are humans too. At P.F. Changs restaurant I saw the cute girl making out with a guy, DARNED! and I met the guy that I run the last 3 miles with. He is a triathle.