University of Okoboji Marathon....for Lulu

This weekend proved to be another insane and exhausting trip. I flew into Minneapolis and made the 3 hour drive to Okoboji, Iowa. If you have never heard of the place, that makes two of us! The race was listed as the University of Okoboji Marathon, a school I had also never heard of. Turns out, the Univerisity part of it is a joke. And I don't mean that in a rude manor, it really is a hoax, there is no school! Thankfully the marathon part was real! The U of Okoboji is the creation of 3 bothers who formed it back in the 1970's. They printed up t-shirts with an official school crest and even a local radio station has joined in the joke to be the "campus radio."  Looking up info about it online after I got home, I even found an entrance exam!

Three Sons University Store

I met my friend Patrick who had been kind enough to let me room with him.  As a general rule I procrastinate on just about everything, including my minor trip details (and in case you didn't realize, hotel rooms qualify as minor details). I suppose in the back of my head I know that in the worst case scenario I can always sleep in my car, or better yet if there is an Anytime Fitness nearby I know I can stay in the gym although I don't know how well that would work for getting shut eye. All the same, an option. Well as you can imagine when I finally decided to face the fact that it was time to travel again and I got around to looking up hotels everything was booked up. That's when I resort to Facebook in the fleeting hope that one of my marathon-crazed friends has also decided to go to whatever outlandish place I'm heading to. So thank you Patrick!

It was another early morning, getting up at 4am for the 6am start. Given the forcasted temps I was ever thankful for an early start. It was 68 degrees as we toed the start line and I knew the first 2 hours would be pretty decent. However, after that the temps were projected to rise 20 degrees in the next 2 hour span. Now some people I know love the heat. They love the humidity even. I am not one of those people. It's fine if you are just going to lounge around the pool for a few hours, but running in it is a whole different story. To me running in the heat is more draining than running hills.

Early morning along the lake

Everyone thinks of Iowa as flat and covered with fields and fields of vegetation. But our course wasn't pancake flat. There were small rolling hills, nothing crazy, but enough to change it up a bit and make life interesting. We did run past fields and fields of corn. I didn't realize it until I was running, but the course took us on some of the same roads I had driven to get there. With only a little over a hundred people running the full marathon it was a quaint and peaceful run. We ran along the edges of Lake Okoboji, which is a major draw in the summer time for vacationers. Plenty of people were out on the Lake boating and enjoying the sun. It seemed kind of strange to me to think that people would pick going to a lake for vacation, because where I live most people generally go to the ocean, but then again they don't exactly have an ocean anywhere nearby in Iowa. I thought about the fact that a good part of the population in the midwest probably has never even been to the ocean. It made me feel so lucky to have lived on both sides of the coast. Don't get me wrong,  Lake Okoboji was quite nice, as were all the little homes that lined the outskirts of it. It was looking better and better to me as the temps rose. You have no idea how much I just wanted to jump in the lake!

 Perfectly sun kissed water

With this race I had a plan of action. I was aiming to cover as much distance as possible the first 2 hours so I'd hopefully have less time in the heat. I don't know how well I accomplished that goal, but I made a steady effort to stay focused. Not only that, but in the back of my mind I had another stress  and that was getting back to the airport in time. With a 3 hour drive, I had a set time I needed to leave so I'd make my flight and that meant finishing the race in 5 hours. The weekend before I had run a 5:08 and that was with starting earlier in the day so it was less time in the heat. It's always a gamble as to how my body is going to respond and I just kept praying that today would be a good day.

In front of me...

And to the side...

Getting race ready meant making sure I put on plenty of sunscreen and wearing a hat to shield myself from the sun. But all the sunscreen in the world wasn't much help if you sweat as much as I did! Besides my clothes being totally soaked, the sweat was even dripping off the rim of my hat. I stayed hydrated and kept pressing on. The hardest part was when we ran out along the corn fields. There was no break from the sun and I felt like I was an egg frying on the pavement.  By mile 18, we had returned to residental streets and had at least partial shade for the last few miles.

Corn, corn and more corn

I was running for Lulu, a young girl orphaned in South Africa. Running these races in difficult conditions, through injury issues, and on tight schedules can be very distracting, but knowing that I was carrying Lulu on my back was the reason, the only reason I was running. Having her picture with me was a very real reminder that this sweat is purpose driven. And when the heat was getting to me, I just remembered Lulu.

 We were all melting at this point, mile 16

Crossing the finish line was also a reason to celebrate as it was my 26th marathon, marking my half way point on this journey of 52 marathons. And cross it I did, in 4 hours, 58 minutes. I didn't even stop for food, but made a beeline for the bus back to my car. Thankfully I made it to the airport on time for my flights and finally got back home about midnight. Talk about a long day!

Race medal

Afterward I saw that the tempature was 88 degrees when I finished and with a heat index of 107.

 Half way done and smiling!

Virginia is having plenty of a heat spell as well and I spent part of my Sunday doing exactly what you should do in crazy heat, going to the pool with my kids! Now on to the second half of this adventure!


Final Race Stats:

Finishing time - 4:58:10
79 out of 118 overall
26 out of 37 women
9 out of 11 in my age division (20-29)