Today was not a successful day... it gives me time to reflect on my successes of the weekend.(And now it is another week later and another failure giving me time to finish this post) Last wednesday morning a friend suggested we meet up in Ohio for the US Air Force marathon...why not?  I had nothing as exciting planned.  As it turns out, most things are more exciting than Ohio.  To be fair all I saw was the city of Fairborne. I flew out Thursday right after work, arriving Friday morning with a few hours to spare till registration opened.  Naturally I wasn't the least bit worried that I might not be able to run the race until I was standing in line with all the other late registrants.  It started to seem a bit crazy to fly across the country to a race I might not be able to participate it.  I didn't have much time to worry, I was very quickly accepted...and they had my shirt size, best fitting race shirt yet. At this point I stray briefly from my tales of success.  My welcome to Ohio lunch was no good, so I went with a guaranteed winner.  Pizza from a place recommended by the front desk person at the hotel.  I was pleased when they said they were accustomed to requests for pizza without any cheese on it ( I know, but it is still better than not eating pizza).  My faith in the infallible nature of pizza led me astray.  Granted, I might be spoiled, living in the city.  I am, however, positive that no one would find this pizza acceptable.  Unremarkable crust and tomato paste instead of real sauce I can understand.  To top that all off were four artichoke hearts (not even one per slice) and perhaps five olive slices per piece.  I was not impressed.  I was glad however that I was only responsible for eating half of it...the other half had cheese but that did little to salvage the mess. I woke up during the night, thinking about food.  This is not a good start to a marathon.
The morning was lovely.  I stood in the porta potty line watching the sun rise.  Two paragliders were making large circles in the sky.  One flew an American flag and the other a POW/MIA flag.  It was lovely, more breath taking than a line of well used porta potties. 
The race started with a canon rapport after two jets flew low over the starting line. And we were off to a trudge.  I was pleased when I passed the army folks in full attire, including boots and packs.  Oh yea, I still got it. The miles passed nicely. All the aid stations seemed to have a theme, giving us something to look forward to each mile...other than the passing of another mile. I was grateful to have a friend to run with, especially after the devastating loneliness of the prior weeks' marathon.  A buddy really helps take the edge off the miles. A bit of conversation makes a world of difference.
Around mile nine we caught a woman with "mom" written in big colorful letters on her back.  Her whole family was running the full marathon!  We lost her, or she might have lost us, but who is keeping track?  We found "dad" and ran with him for a bit, getting a different take on the story of how the family came to be running this event together.  We had "lil sis" in our sights and dropped dad to catch her.  She seemed glad to find strangers who knew a good deal of her life history.  And who wouldn't be? After having run with her parents I was not the least surprised to find lil sis to be intelligent, outgoing and generally an uplifting partner to run with.  I was hitting my rough miles and was grateful to have people talking to help take my mind off the race. They got me through my tough miles. We got Lil Sis through her tough miles. The other member of our trio doesn't have rough miles. As we approached my previous breakdown point I found I felt good enough to start speeding up. We passed Big Bro at mile 24 and I was in no mood to slow down and chat. We zoomed by. As we entered the finish area I pushed with everything I had and really sped up. I finished strong! Certainly stronger than the previous race. It occurred to me that I probably could have started pushing my pace before mile 24, shave even more time off my previous best. As is I dropped 14 minutes. Leaving me with a time I would still rather not admit to.
Running two marathons in 7 days got me accepted into the marathon maniacs #1794! (that is an exclamation point, indicating excitement, not factorial)