5 seconds too slow

I've heard that the saddest day in a boy's life is when he realizes that he is faster than his father.... unfortunately I'm going to have to wait a few more months to know that feeling.

The event was the Kelowna Marathon on Sunday Oct 9th. My best marathon to date had been the Vancouver marathon that I finished in 3:42. My goal for this marathon: The Palmer family record. I spoke with my parent's the eve before the run to determine exactly the time I had to beat to hold the Palmer family record. As a side note, prior to the run, I didn't even have the second best marathon time in the family as my mother had run a 3:34 marathon. So I asked my dad "so what's your best marathon time?" "I think it's 3:27 and change," he says. OK I have my goal time.

The plan is to run at a 3:30 pace and then pick it up with about 10 kms to go. No problem right? As it turns out the plan got me in at exactly the time I planned it to: 3:27:05.

Feeling pretty good about my PR and what I thought was the Palmer family record I called my dad to gloat. Now I know what you are thinking: Geoff, you are 23 years old and you are calling your 49 and 50 year-old parents to gloat to them that you beat them! It is true that most 23 year old's wouldn't gloat to his parents about beating them, but it is also true that most 23 year old don't have 2 parent who could run sub 3:30 marathons (my mother never actually ran a sub 3:30 but she was certainly capable of it in a non-race setting). So never having had the opportunity to gloat to my parents about running faster than them, I wanted to take advantage!

So I call them up. "27:05, eh?" my dad says "give me a second." I knew that he wanted to make sure that I had beat him. A couple of seconds later he returned to the phone and I didn't need a picture phone to know that he had a grin on his face. His time: 3:27 even. I was 5 seconds too slow.

I've got a truckload of excuses that I could use (the "and change" comment he made the night before for one!) but at the end of the day his certificate has a faster time than mine does. Training for the next one begins tomorrow. 3:26:59 here I come!