Maryland (Lower Potomac River Marathon) 3/14/10

What an adventure this one was just to get to. Working for an airline has its advantages but when you are trying to fly the first weekend of spring break it can be very difficult. I needed to fly to Washington DC but every flight was over sold. We started looking at any city even close and they were all full. We even looked at going to other cities on the west coast and then fly back to DC but all were full. We even looked at flights to Canada but no go. Even though the flights were full I decided I was still going to try. After getting bumped from a couple of flights I was getting very discouraged. Wendy finally found a flight to Knoxville, TN that had a couple seats available only because there were a few mis-connects. I ran over to the other terminal and was able to get on the flight. After getting to Knoxville I was able to get on another flight to Cleveland, OH and then another to DC. It took me almost 14 hours to get there but I made it.

Once in DC I drove over to Piney Point, MD to check out the course. The course is very scenic and most of it is where the Potomac River dumps into the Chesapeake Bay. There had been alot of rain the last few days and while driving the course I came up to an area of the road that was completely under water from the river being so high. A little concerned I decided to go back to the expo and talk to the race director to see what we were going to do if it was still like that in the morning. She did not seem concerned and said it will be low tide in the morning, I guess this is not uncommon for that area.

The morning of the race was cool and sure enough all the water had receded. This was a great run especially the first 13 miles. It was one of the smallest races I have done with only 119 finishers. The start and finish was at the Paul Hall Center, Harry Lundeberg School of Seamanship. We were able to use the facility both before and after the race. We had shower facilities and they even prepared and full pasta meal after the race. If you are looking for a small race with little to no fan support then this race is for you.