marathon report

I finished! That was my goal for this race, even overcoming a grand theft to do so. It was somewhat funny, I ran the marathon in borrowed green soccer shorts and 3 year old shoes that already had another marathon and lots of miles on them. Geordon finished as well, meeting his goal of finishing sub 5 hours.

This was the hardest, prettiest, and most enjoyable marathon I´ve done thus far. This was the first off-road mountain marathon I've done, and I really need to do more of these, they're much better. We ran on pristine mountain trails, even through snow a few times, and had some amazing snow capped mountains and deep blue mountain lakes to look at while running. The race was well-organized and the other runners were all very encouraging throughout the race with many shouts of "vamos!!". The two monstrous hills that we had to run straight up killed me, but I knew that was going to be a problem, having trained in flat Buenos Aires.

The winner was an insane jackrabbit who finished in 2:59. He must've sprinted up the hills, which I'm still trying to comprehend how that was done. I finished 26th out of 412 people total, and was a little disappointed at that, mainly because I started cramping a lot at km 25 (once again, the hills) and had 12 or 13 people pass me. My time and place would have been better if not for the cramps, but if ifs and buts were candies and nuts, then I'd have a lot of snacks. It's something that'll keep me coming back for more marathons. But overall, this was a really enjoyable race, and a unique trip. And yes, I would do it again even if it meant being robbed again, although next time, hopefully that won't happen.

Here are the results:

http://www.patagoniaeventos.com/K42-Adventure-Marathon/resultados-2007-completos.html

the backdrop of where we started the race:

video coming soon...