Thank you so much for the encouragement, Shauna, Luck, and everyone! We did it - we ran two marathons back to back, or as they say among crazy marathon runners, we "doubled." I'll soon post here the photographs and video we took of the Baltimore and the Steamtown (Scranton, PA) marathons, held on Oct. 10 and 11, 2009, respectively. For now, here are our results:
Ray Rogers
Baltimore, 26.2 miles: 4 hours, 26 minutes, and 17 seconds; finished 194th out of 310 in age group (37th percentile)
Steamtown, 26.2 miles: 4 hours, 27 minutes, 19 seconds; finished 80th out of 95 in age group (16th percentile)
Krista Shaffer
Baltimore, 26.2 miles: 4 hours, 35 minutes, 21 seconds; finished 85th out of 161 in age group (47th percentile)
Steamtown, 26.2 miles: 4 hours, 35 minutes, 40 seconds; finished 108th out of 141 in age group (23rd percentile)
Ray and I paced ourselves much slower than our best marathon times so that we could be sure to complete the back-to-back marathons. (Ray's best time is 3 hours, 8 minutes, and 22 seconds; and mine is 3 hours, 39 minutes, 25 seconds.) Our pace for the 50-mile race in November will be even slower - probably 12- or 13-minute miles.
An initial observation about these two races is that they couldn't have been more different. The Baltimore Marathon was huge, very urban, and very crowded. It drew a lot of people for whom it will be their first and only marathon. The course is designed to showcase the city's downtown - and probably also to not cause TOO much traffic disruption. Most of the onlookers were friends and relatives of people running the race.
The Steamtown Marathon was small and rural. The course is designed to be fast - overall, it's downhill. It attracts a lot of regular marathon runners as well as younger runners who are trying to qualify for the Boston Marathon - generally a very fast group. (You can see that Steamtown people are a lot faster if you look at how Ray and I placed in our age groups in the two races.) The onlookers were townspeople who made signs, decorated their yards, and handed out orange slices or lollipops or whatever else they thought runners might like.
I think you can imagine which one Ray and I liked better! I can't wait to show you the videos. More on the ASAP.
