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| Texas women at Steamtown USA |
I'll never forget the summer we trained for this one. The heat was relentless, which unnerved us. How could we run a marathon when we were barely getting through our long runs? This is the year I actually finished up the last 10 miles of a 22 mile run on a treadmill because I just couldn't take it anymore. I had cracked! When we stepped off the school bus in Forest City Pennsylvania race day morning into the sharp cold air we were elated. It was going to be a great great day!
It surprises me that I never hear of any locals heading up to do this race, because it is one of the best marathons I have ran to this day. The course appears to be about the same--a point to point course with a net downhill, and with a reputation as being a great Boston qualifier. According to their website, Runner's World did an online survey which showed Steamtown as the 6th most favorite marathon. We chose to do it because Ginna had met people from Scranton when she was in Boston and they raved about how great their local marathon was. We knew a little about it already, and were interested, so their testimony sealed the deal.
The 5 of us ran close together the entire way; Laura Harvey and Kathy ran together ahead of Ginna and I, who ran together, with Elaine behind us. In fact, all of us ended up together in the finisher's chute, finishing within five minutes of one another! Ginna and I stayed together until around mile 22-23 or so, talking the entire time, which was a first for me. The miles went by so quickly! At one point the course looped back on itself, so we saw Kathy and Laura together and waved to each other. It was good to see that we were all having a great day.
The course ran through several small towns, each lined with spectators and American flags. Autumn was in full force with the changing of the leaves. A good portion of the course ran along the Lakawanna River, and at one point we crossed the river on an old wooden bridge. Around mile 14 we entered a bike path, which was at times dirt or wooden chips, but easy to run on. It was a beautiful tree-lined path. We were on it for about 5 miles. The last 5K had some difficult hills, but we were rewarded with a screaming downhill finish into Scranton. It was funny because Kathy sped up as Ginna sped up and caught Laura, so those 2 actually finished together instead of Kathy and Laura.
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| Notice fall colors and American flags |
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| The path |
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| The amazing downhill stretch to finish |
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| Love this shot: Ginna and Laura together |
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| Official finisher photo--this was a fun finish line! |
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| In the chute together! |
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| So pretty! |
Indeed, looking back I have nothing but good memories of this trip, but my most precious memory of all was meeting Mike Murgas Sr and watching the Talladega NASCAR race with the great and former NASCAR game points champion. Priceless...
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| The Murgas family: Our favorite spectators |
