Dave Naffziger's Blog

I ran the Leavenworth Marathon on Saturday. The entire event was a tremendous amount of fun. The weather was perfect (50s and sunny), the scenery was gorgeous and the course was fun. The marathon consisted of two laps of a half-marathon course. There was a long hill at mile 2/15, but the course was mostly flat after that hill. Aid stations were a bit sparse and I definitely wanted more water over the last 10 miles.

The marathon was small (90 finishers), but a simultaneous half marathon (500 finishers) made the race feel larger. Much of the course was on regular roads and since the race was so small, the roads were rarely closed. I’m not a fan of running with traffic, but it wasn’t too much of an issue.

Saturday marathons are a rare but brilliant concept. Most marathons are held on Sundays, so you typically eat light, stay away from alcohol and go to bed early on Saturday. Sunday is for travel back home. Leavenworth was a Saturday run, so we went directly from the race to the Oktoberfest celebrations in Leavenworth and ‘celebrated’ late into the morning.

We rented a cabin (Brunner’s Lodge: highly recommended) outside of town with a group of 12. There were only 4 runners in the group, but others went rock climbing or hung out in Leavenworth while we ran. Matt ran the half-marathon and posted a few pictures on Facebook.

Finishing time was 3:44:59. 15 minutes off of my PR, but definitely a time I’m proud of.