Lost Dutchman Marathon 2007

Are all great sagas trilogies?
This is the conclusion of my February 2007 Trilogy. Now that Becky is going to do a race preview this week, I'm not going to race this weekend.
Last Sunday, 8 days after the Pemberton 50K, I ran the Lost Dutchman Marathon. It's a beautiful, fun course, not a trail run, but with several miles on dirt roads. It has lots of rolling hills to make it interesting, and views of the Superstition Mountains from a lot of different perspectives, starting from right underneath some weird rock formations.
The weather was great again. It was a little warm for out-of-towners, but it was overcast almost all day. I drank as much as I could on the course, but was never in danger of getting dehydrated or overheated.
I drank so much I had to make a pit stop at mile 11. My ankle had been fine over the dirt roads in and out of the washes in the desert at the start of the race, but I stepped on a rock as I came out of the porta-john and turned it again. I hopped for a while, limped for a while longer, and ran on as well as I could. The pain subsided.
Once again, it was good to not have any great expectations, to tell myself that if it felt hard, I could just ease up. I had no goal other than to finish.
I came to the end feeling strong. I actually kicked in.

Lost Dutchman Marathon

1.   8:19
2.   8:07   16:27
3.   8:14   24:41
4.   8:00   32:42
5.   7:53   40:35
6.   7:55   48:30
7.   8:04   56:35
8.   8:12 1:04:47
9.   8:20 1:13:07
10.  8:30 1:21:38
11.  8:44 1:30:23
12.  9:32 1:39:55
13.  8:45 1:48:40
14.  8:54 1:57:35
15.  9:06 2:06:41
16.  9:00 2:15:42
17.  9:03 2:24:45
18.  8:54 2:33:39
19.  9:10 2:42:49
20.  8:43 2:51:35
21.  9:25 3:00:59
22.  9:14 3:10:13
23.  9:33 3:19:47
24.  9:51 3:29:38
25.  9:24 3:39:03
26.  9:17 3:48:21
26.2 1:56 3:50:17