The Little Rock Saturday Experience

As I need to get to bed, here is an outline of what we did today in Little Rock between approximately 10 a.m. and 8:30 p.m.

Little Rock Marathon Expo
+ Waverly and I talked with (at length) Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee.
+ Saw (and talked with) Steve and Paula Boone, from Humble, of the 50 States Marathon Club.
+ Talked with Marlin Keesler from Chicago, Illinois about his book, "Our Life On The Run -- A Story Of Running 50 Marathons in 50 States: A Family Quest". (I bought a copy for $15.)
+ Talked with Ocala Marathon race director Chuck Savage.
+ Sat in on Bart Yasso's "How to Run Your Best Marathon or Half Marathon" presentation. (Added bonus was that his wife, Laura, a veteran ultramarathoner sat in on the session midway through and offered commentary.)
+ Spoke with Laura Yasso for about 10 minutes or so after Bart's presentation. (Incredibly nice lady!)
Miscellaneous
+ Toured the Arkansas State Capitol building.
+ Visited with a former Spring High School '84 classmate Jerry Wild and his two sons, Grant and Austin, at the State Capitol. (Jerry, a 6'6" former basketballer at Spring HS, ran the half marathon two years ago as I had.)
+ Ate lunch at Jason's Deli.
+ Went to the U.S. National Park Service's Historic Site for Little Rock Central High School, which, of course, was a flash point in 1957 for "the implementation of the U.S. Supreme Court’s historic Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision of 1954."
+ Went to the William J. Clinton Presidential Library for about an hour and a half.
+ Drove the Little Rock Marathon course, which took nearly an hour and a half itself because there were one-way streets that we couldn't drive on and street signs that we couldn't see. The course features 50 turns!
+ Had dinner at Chili's -- had the same pre-race meal that I had two weeks ago in Austin.

The bottom line is that the course has lots of long gradual inclines (one that is more pronounced from the half-way point to mile 16), a steep downhill section that passes mile marker 17, an almost 5-mile out-and-back from just beyond mile marker 18 and 23 and an uphill at the 25-mile marker that is a bit more significant than the one right before the 3M Half Marathon finish.

The forecast at 9:45 p.m. from weather.com for Sunday? Chance of precipitation is 30% (with potential isolated thunderstorms) with the following temperature/humidity hourly forecasts:

8:00 a.m. -- 48 degrees, 68% humidity, winds from SSE 6 mph
9:00 a.m. -- 51 degrees, 63% humidity, winds from SSE 8 mph
10:00 a.m. -- 54 degrees, 59% humidity, winds from S 9 mph
11:00 a.m. -- 57 degrees, 55% humidity, winds from S 10 mph
12 noon -- 59 degrees, 53% humidity, winds from S 11 mph
1:00 p.m. -- 61 degrees, 52% humidity, winds from SSW 11 mph

The winds will, for the majority of the time, be crosswinds as the course is primarily situated east-to-west.

Waverly will be waiting at the mile 23 marker to join me the last 3.2 miles. She'll be wearing her Houston Running Bloggers RC shirt and her Texas shorts!

There's lots to tell from some of those conversations above, but one of the funniest parts of the day came when we returned to the truck after touring the Clinton Presidential Library. There was this note on our windshield (no name attached to it, of course):

"Anyone with a "W" sticker isn't smart enough to be in this building."

Dude, lighten up! I spent Texas dollars to go in the world's largest double-wide!