Route 66 Tulsa Marathon

The purpose of today's adventure was to attempt to become a sub 4 hour marathoner. I brought Rob along to mule for me. He carried all of my gels and my water bottle. He kept the time and set the pace and provided me with motivation. Through the first 10 miles, Rob was becoming concerned because I was running pretty fast. I hit the half marathon split at 1:54 and some change. I wanted some time in the bank because I was concerned about fading in the end. Rob was convinced that we could drop the walk breaks in the last 10k, but I proved him wrong. The last 13 miles of the marathon were on a very flat course, but the temp got up to about 65 and there was little shade. I fueled well up until 18 miles. By the time I got to 22, the thought of eating anything sounded disgusting. At mile 23 I started to feel nauseous and knew that if I vomitted, that would be the end of my quest for a sub 4 hour marathon. I slowed to a crawl and told Rob that I needed to walk some. He gave in, but knew we were going to be cutting it close. I did terrible at mile 23, 24 and 25. My pace slowed to 10:36, 10:53 and 11:39 respectively. Rob pushed me at the 25 mile mark to take it up. He said "no more walk breaks". I ran the 26th mile in 9:42. The watch showed 3:58:24 when we hit the 26th mile. We had 0.2 to go. Rob said "you've got to find another gear". We rounded the corner and turned another corner and could see the finish line. I could see the time running out on my goal. I pushed it as hard as I could and finished in 3:59:59. I ran the last 0.2 in 1:34 which is around a 6:20 pace. I don't know how I did it, but I did. It was nice to make that goal, but I don't like feeling like I did.