West Palm Beach Marathon

The second marathon I ran was in West Palm Beach in December of 2006. I was born in Palm Beach Gardens and my dad grew up in West Palm Beach. He ran long distance on the track team in high school and he did a lot of his running in his youth near where the marathon would take place. I gained my desire for long distance running from seeing my dad run growing up. We would enter 5k races and run them as a family. Since my dad was my insipiration for running, I decided that this would be a good marathon to run. I was going to dedicate the race to him and give him my medal. I didn't quite train for this marathon as well as I should have. I had some injuries in flag football that interupted my training schedule. I got a little confident since I had already completed one marathon. The heat really got to this race. It was 85 degrees an hour into the race and it beat me up. I had to walk quite a few times after mile 23. I would run for four minutes and walk for 30 seconds. I was so tired! Didn't hit the wall, but came real close. I finished the race in 4 hours 25 minutes. I was sorely disappointed with my results. I decided that I would not be this unprepared for the next marathon. The hard part about the race was that we passed the finish line twice before we actually finished the race. It was not fun passing the finish line at mile 20 with 6 miles to go. I made a shadow box for my dad with a poem in it dedicating the race to him. I gave it to him for Christmas. Auburn and Melina (my daughters) ran a short race the day before my race. They got a t-shirt and medal for their race. They had a really good time. I was really proud of them.