I'm guessing that "Marathony" isn't really a word, but that headline pretty much describes my trip to New Orleans last weekend.  I went there to run in my very first Marathon, but it's New Orleans, so there was also a little eating and drinking involved.

On the Mardi Gras Marathon web-site, there were pre-race suggestions.  One of the suggestions said that if you normally have a beer at night, it's o.k. to have one the night before the race.  Two at the very most.  So, Saturday afternoon I went out for a beer at a little Irish pub around the corner from my hotel.  While I was there, I ran into a group of people from Australia and had a great conversation with them.  Pretty soon a couple more people from Austaralia walk into the bar and start talking.  It turns out this group no longer lives in Australia.  They now live in Waukesha!  Small world.  After the race, at the post race party, I noticed a guy with an Ironman Wisconsin bag.  He was in NOLA with a group of people from the Twin Cities.  One of his friends was very familiar with Madison, she used to teach at UW Platteville, where my wife and I and our friend Deb who was also with us all went to college.  Small world.

The race itself went well.  4:28 was my time.  On the slower end of where I thought I would finish, but within the range that I set for my goal.  I lined up about 2/3 of the way back in the pack.  That was a big mistake, as I spent most of the first couple of miles dodging through the traffic, trying to get up to a decent pace.  I think my pace for those first two miles was about 17 minute miles.  It got better after that.  And then probably a little worse at the end, but whose counting.  Other than those really slow first couple of miles, the run itself felt good.  I forced myself to do two things to make sure I wouldn't burn out- first, I walked through every water/gatorade station.  My legs stayed pretty fresh by doing that, but I probably could have done just fine running through a couple of them.  Secondly, I promised myself not to start out too fast and lose it by mile 10.  Again, I probably could have done a better job with the pacing, I could have run a bit faster at the beginning (if I would have lined up a bit more towards the front) and not really hurt myself.  

Stay tuned- I have lots of memories of the run that I will share over the next couple of days.