I would suggest that everyone do the Niagara Fall Marathon!

Two weeks ago I tried another marathon to get to Boston, and the lucky one was Niagara Falls. It starts in Buffalo, we cross the bridge into Canada, run up to Lake Erie and then run down the Niagara river finishing right at the Falls. It was spectacular.

The run itself was quite good. I had some Mitch Hedberg comedy on my MP3 player and ran well for the first 10k or so, then running up to the mouth of Niagara river very near the turnaround I felt a sharp pain in my achilles. During my last long run before this race I had injured it, but I had taken good care of it for the week prior and hoped it would last.

I immediately changed my gait to more of a Terry-Fox style to avoid using my calf and heel. The pain went away after just a couple of minutes and I was running well again.

Everything was great for another 12 or so k when the heel came back. This time it stayed for about an hour. My pace went down to around 5:30 or 5:45 or a minute + slower than I needed it to be. It is a good thing Bogusia didn't come watch me during that time because I would have gone off with her.

An hour later and the heel was numb, which allowed me to go faster again and I hit under 5:00 for the last almost 10k. I had enough energy to rocket through the last 500M at a flat out sprint which I paid for.

Final time: 3:27 Personal best, under 3:30, improvement of almost 8 minutes from a month ago and only 17 minutes off my goal. The race was a pleasure with great weather and scenery. I'm happy with my time and I think I ran close to the best I could have.