This was a very enjoyable race. My goal for the day was to have a fun event and possibly see what I could do time wise. I arrived early enough at the race to make the Marathon Maniac picture (though I was way in the back). I spoke with maniac Adam Irvin who is also from Springfield. Adam and I met at Myrtle Beach. He had told me that his last time that he had done a couple weeks prior was 4:22. I was hoping to come in under 4:15. When we started together, I had adjusted my strategy to run 4 minutes, walk 30 seconds for the first 13.1. He was convinced that doing walk breaks wouldn't work for him. So, for the first half, we ran together then I would take a walk break, then I would catch up to him. At mile 11, I really had to pee and there was an empty port-a-potty. I stopped in. As I came out of the stop, I was right at the big hill in the race. The 1 minute cardio rest was just what I needed to charge it up that hill and catch up to Adam. The next 3 miles were kind of up and down through the park. Adam was beginning to struggle to keep the same pace I was. There was no 13.1 marker so when I hit the 14 mile mark I saw that I was at 2:11. I actually thought to myself I could break 4:10. Adam was about 100 yard back from me as we came down out of the park. At mile 15, I decided to extend my walk segments to 1 minute. Adam caught back up to me about mile 16 and I added an extra minute walk because he was really gassed from trying to catch up to me. He committed to run/walk 4:1 for the rest of the race and I promised him that I would bring him in under 4:22. The last ten miles we joked around as we ran and several times he told me to go on without him. I said "no, let's do this together". When we hit the 26 mile mark we were coming in strong and we just had a little downhill section to do. I was dancing and when I crossed the finish I attempted a 360. I'm curious to see how the pictures turned out. It was a glorious race day.