I’m not sure when I realized I could break 50 Guinness World Records. I know it didn’t hit me that it happened until today. I was wished happy 50th. It made me thinking of people who have been married for 50 years. Jennifer and I are going to celebrate our 10 year anniversary in 7 months and that’s a big deal. This isn’t as big a deal to me but it is still pretty special.
The MC announced at the beginning of the race some of the exciting marks being attempted at the race. There was one gal attempting her 33rd half marathon. She was 11… Wow. Then there was the man attempting his 100th marathon. I was inspired by the dedication and persistence. I hope to someday reach 100 Guinness World Records but my marathon tally is indefinitely suspended at 1. When I passed the man attempting his 100th marathon and heard he was nearby I slowed down and ran with him for a few steps. I didn’t find out until after the race that he was deaf. I was inspired. I was a little embarrassed when I ran off and someone on his team said “thank you” and I said, “No, thank you!”. They were thanking a volunteer directing car traffic that I hadn’t seen while looking at my cue.
And then they announced that I was going for my 50th Guinness World Record. The record was the fastest half marathon run with a pool cue balanced on one finger. I was glad they kept the part in that I broke records to promote STEM education.
It was a chilly morning in the 50s and felt colder with a strong, gusty wind. There was a false start countdown at 7 AM when the race was supposed to start since there were 2 busses of runners that hadn’t yet arrived. Fifteen minutes later the raced began for real. I waited until the 1,100 runners from the half an full marathon all crossed the start line and then waited another minute and a half to start so I the crowd could spread out before I needed to start passing them.
I took off at about 7:16 AM and immediately ran into trouble. Gusts of over 30 MPH hit me from the side and it was all I could do to stretch my right hand all the way over to the left side of my body and have the cue lean right into the wind. I made it several steps but then lost the handle and the cue fell off. I slowed, retraced my steps, rebalanced the cue and took off again. Less than a minute later another strong gust knocked the cue off and the process repeated.
I got lots of fun comments throughout the race and plenty of encouragement. My splits were about 8:15-8:30 for the first 6 miles, then 9:30 for the 7th since I stopped for food and had a camera malfunction that took some time. I finished at sub 7:30 pace for the last 3 miles.
My finishing chip time was ***update: 1:49:37. I broke my stretch goal of sub 1:50.
Previously it was: 1:50:58… (gun time 1:54:16) however, after several hours of review checking and double checking both my videos are only 1:49: 37 so I think that’s how long it took me (I confirmed with several other runners and our stopwatch that they were getting longer times than the chips were reporting of about 1:21). I emailed the race director since I think all 1,100 runners were affected and have 1:21 added to their chip time. (they responded and updated everyone’s results accordingly). I only needed to run a 3 hour 30 second half to beat this record so I did, it’s just a matter of by how much. I also have several folks who think the course was 13.3 but I have no way to accurately evaluate that.
Big shout out to Patrick Harper and Kevin Everett who accompanied me the whole way as official witnesses and videographers. They were extremely helpful not only for making the record attempt official but letting me know about low hanging tree branches (and especially the time I hit some pine needles I didn’t feel).
