The finish line

After four months of training, I ran and - as many have already heard - finished the Missoula Marathon on Sunday, my first marathon.

Officially, I finished in 4 hours, 1 minute and 22 seconds, 245th out of 596 runners to make the timing cutoff. The pace works out to 9:13 a mile, which is faster than what I trained at by about 20 seconds a mile.

The race started in Frenchtown at 6 a.m. - just as the sun was coming up - which meant the alarm clock went off at 4 a.m. The first 16 miles were a breeze (in hindsight, I probably went a bit fast at the start). By mile 20 I had slowed some. I had to walk a little at mile 23 after my iliotibial band tightened up, but soon was running again for the final stretch over the Higgins Avenue Bridge downtown.

One of the best parts of the race was having friends in a relay team cheer me on throughout the course and at the finish with some of my family. I even got my own "GO JUSTIN" sign. Jen worked as an official race photographer and from her vantage shot some video, including the clip of me crossing the line above.

The past few days I've been resting - read busy at work - but I went for a short jog this morning and everything feels great.

Do I plan to do it again? It's a big time commitment, but yes. Mostly I feel like I need to drop that 1:22 off my time to get under four hours, but I've also come to enjoy the longer runs. Insane, as Jen would say.

See the official race photos here.