West Texas Crossroads Marathon, Odessa, TX October 3, 2009

Only a week after running the "Eight Hour Run From the Ducks Ultramarathon", I headed out west to Odessa to run the West Texas Crossroads Marathon. I was accompanied by two fellow Abilene Runners Club members, Jerry Hollingsworth and Brett Rose. The race was organized and sponsored mainly by the Crossroads Fellowship church. The organizers, along with many volunteers, did a great job of putting this race together. We arrived at the church Friday evening for race packet pickup and soon found our good friend and fellow Ultra-runner, David Johnson, from Odessa. After a good visit with David, we checked into our hotel and then had a great pasta dinner at Corino's Country Italian.

Saturday morning, we arrived back at the church parking lot early. In the pre-dawn darkness, we stretched and loosened up before the race start. Jerry and Brett were running the Half, David Johnson and myself were running the Full. The start of the race was still in darkness, but after a half mile or so, it was light enough to see. The course was well marked, with mile markers at every mile. There were also aid stations at almost every mile manned by courteous and friendly volunteers. They even had Porta-Johns about every 4 miles! The course ran through some great neighborhoods with big, beautiful homes. Police volunteers were at all the major intersections to protect the runners from traffic. These folks did a great job! The course was flat, as you would expect in Odessa, and fortunately the wind was not bad. Since I had just ran the 8 Hr Duck Run the prior Saturday, I held to a strict pattern of 9 minute run, 1 minute walk. This method really paid off for me toward the end as I still had enough stamina to continue this to the end. I finished in 4:37:15. Not my best finish, but I was happy with it.