Crowning a Boston Marathon Champ!

A temperature of 49 degrees and a 13 mph headwind greeted more than 26,000 runners at the start in Hopkinton -- including an unprecedented 1 runner from Waxhaw, NC by the name of Lynn Pettus -- to help celebrate the 2,500th anniversary the Battle of Marathon. It was there, in 490 B.C., that a messenger named Pheidippides was dispatched the roughly 26 miles to Athens to deliver news of a victory over Persia -- and then dropped dead.

Thankfully, Lynn had a better training plan than Pheidippides and will be returning to North Carolina with a medal around her neck, and the title of "Boston Marathon Finisher", with a finish time of 4:02:07 on the impressively hilly Boston Course.   She fell "just a few minutes short" of the women's winning time of 2:26:11, thereby leaving the $150,000 in prize money on the table. Bummer.  It would have made a nice donation to the Emmah Care fund!  However, faithful readers can make up the difference with donations!!!

After a short few weeks recovery, Lynn will be putting in more hillwork in preparation for the TransRockies Run in August (with Ken drafting behind her conserving energy!).  This is a fantastic start to Lynn's 2010 running calendar, and we look forward to hearing her describe the experience in a future post.

Until then, I will share in my next post what it felt like to do Hip-Hop Zumba dance at the local YMCA a few days ago.  Play that funky music....

KEIYH