50 States and DC: Servis1St Bank First Light Marathon

I arrived in Mobile, AL around 5:00pm after running the Mississippi Blues and checked into the Holiday Inn. I took luggage to the room and then went over to the Mobile Government Plaza where the expo and pasta dinner was being held for the marathon.

We received the following swag – marathon shirt, back to back shirt for running both Mississippi Blues and First Light Marathons and a unique plaque created by the L’Arche Community.

“L’Arche is an international federation of communities in which people with intellectual disabilities and those who help them can live, work, and share their lives together”.

I returned to the hotel to wait on my friend Mary who was coming over from Pensacola to have dinner with me. We haven't seen either other since 2007, she arrived in Mobile around 8:45 and we drove over to Friday's to have dinner. After dinner she dropped me off at the hotel and I was able to finally go to bed around 11:15. After a restless night of sleep I finally went down to the lobby to wait for the start of the marathon.

While waiting to start the race I heard from plenty of Maniacs and others talk about getting sick sometime during the night from the pasta dinner.

The Mobile County Health Department has been investigating and working with the First Light Marathon Committee to determine the reason why people became sick directly after the pasta dinner.

The first half of the course was pretty and relatively flat compare the Mississippi Blues Marathon on Saturday. I was keeping a good pace as there was intention of going for a particular time goal. I saw Larry around mile 8 chatted with him for a bit and wished him good luck and continue on my way.

Around 14 I started with a couple from Texas that was not having a good race due to having GI problems from the dinner. We ended up running the last half of the marathon together. Every other mile one or the other would run head to use the porta-a-potties. During the miles I learned that they were planning on running the Baton Rouge Marathon the following week.

While running through the South Alabama campus we encountered a freaking huge hill that I was expecting since the run up to that point was flat. We continue to chat and encourage each other that no matter what we were going to finish the marathon.