Sunburst Marathon Race Report

Outlined against a sunny, blue June sky, a marathoner ran again. In dramatic lore, his name is Phidippides. This is only his alias. His real name is Austin. He formed the crest of a South Bend cyclone which swept through the streets of that Indiana city on Saturday morning with 500 other runners to set a new personal best at the 2007 Sunburst Marathon.

OK, so it wasn't that dramatic, but venturing to what is arguably the epicenter of college football history for my sixth marathon, I couldn't help but channel my inner Grantland Rice in recounting my experience at the Sunburst race. It was Rice who penned what is considered the most famous piece of sportswriting prose (and the source of my parody above) when he dubbed the Notre Dame backfield quartet of Harry Stuhldreher, Jim Crowrey, Don Miller and Elmer Layden as "The Four Horsemen" in his account of the Fighting Irish's 13-7 victory over Army on Oct. 18, 1924.

But in the land where the legends of Fighting Irish figures like the Horsemen, Knute Rockne, George Gipp, Paul Hornung, Ara Parseghian, Tim Brown, Lou Holtz, and yes, even "Rudy" Ruettiger grow larger each autumn, and in the shadows of famous Notre Dame landmarks such as the Golden Dome, "Touchdown Jesus" and Notre Dame Stadium, I added my own memorable moment by setting a new personal marathon best in the Sunburst race, finishing in 3 hours, 54 minutes, and 46 seconds.

The race is more than a marathon. In fact, it's a town-wide running festival with a marathon, half marathon, 10K run, 5K run and 5K walk. Although there were only 525 runners in the marathon, the race was a nice break from the mega-marathons I've participated in that draw tens of thousands of runners. The entire event from the packet pick-up to the conclusion had a festive atmosphere. There weren't a lot of spectators lining the course but the ones who were out, as well as the volunteers staffing the water and aid stations were very enthusiastic.

The Sunburst Marathon is billed as a route from "the Hall of Fame to Notre Dame." The race started on the street in front of the College Football Hall of Fame in downtown South Bend, Indiana, traveled through several neighborhoods, in some of the local parks, on portions of the greenway trail and along the town's river walk before a climactic finish on the 50-yard-line inside Notre Dame stadium.

The marathon got under way at 6 a.m. and based on my early mile splits, I thought I might shatter my pervious marathon best. I consistently registered mile times under 8 minutes, 30 seconds for the first half of the race, crossing the halfway point in 1 hour, 49 minutes -- which would have been a new personal half marathon best.

As the sun rose in the morning sky, however, so did the temperature, the humidity and my mile times. By mile 19, my split times were up to more than 9 minutes per mile. They were more than 10 minutes by mile 22, and more than 11 minutes by mile 25. My legs were throbbing, but I kept plodding along, putting one foot in front of the other.

I passed the 26-mile marker with Touchdown Jesus looking down and entered the stadium for the final stretch run to the finish. With the Notre Dame Victory March fight song emanating from some loudspeakers, I felt like Rudy or one of the other members of the Fighting Irish sprinting from the locker room to the field on game day. With each step the darkness of the tunnel gave way to the sunlight shining down on the field in the expansive stadium.

Running up the far sideline, I counted down, well up actually, the distance to the finish.

He's at the 10...the 20...the 30...the 40...the 50....TOUCHDOWN AUSTIN!

Crossing the finish line actually did feel as if I'd scored a touchdown, so I struck my best Heisman Trophy pose right there at midfield.

With my official time of 3:54:46, I eclipsed my previous marathon best of 3 hours, 58, minutes, 11 seconds, by 3 minutes, 25 seconds. I placed 154th out of 525 overall, 127th out of 374 among all the male competitors and 20th out of 46 in my age group of 30-34 year old males. With the finish, Indiana became the sixth state to get checked off my list to run a marathon in all 50 states.

I guess you could say, I ran this one for the Gipper.