Oklahoma City Marathon 2008 - Saturday

Jeff Odell is running the 2008 Oklahoma City Marathon and recording impressions of the event over three days.  Day 1 was Friday.  This is Day 2.

Day 2 of the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon was bright and sunny.  I spent the morning getting stuff together and making sure I was ready for the run.  Weather report was still mentioning rain but the temperatures look like they will be ideal.  After making sure I hadn't left some critical piece of race gear behind, I had a quick lunch and re-synced the Garmin up to the local satellites.

After lunch, I headed up the road for my first view of the Oklahoma City Memorial site.  It was only 4 blocks from the hotel - 4 blocks that were a long, uphill climb.  I got a whiff of some of the challenges I might face on the road during the race.  I put that out of my head for the day.

Approaching the site, I was greeted by the Gates of Time, the  entryway to the Memorial grounds.  Passing through them, I got my first view of the Memorial grounds.  The reflecting pool marks the location of the roadway.  On the left is the Field of Empty Chairs, former site of the federal building, one chair for each of the 168 victims.  The chairs are arranged roughly where each of the victims were found, each floor represented by a row.  It is almost surreal to imagine the building we all remember from the news reports standing on that very spot.

Across the reflecting pool is the Survivor's Tree - an American Elm that survived the bombing in tact, in spite of being surrounded by the  destruction.  The tree is a symbol for all the people that survived the bombing and remain to relate the story.  We had one of the survivors give us an overview of the area.  He was the building manager for the building for 17 years and was carried from the building by an Oklahoma City policeman.  He served on the original Memorial committees and was excellent at explaining the symbolism captured by the site.

I toured the museum for a couple hours, then headed to the Spaghetti dinner.  I met a guy from Orlando and one from Barcelona, Spain.  The latter had run almost 200 marathons and had just come from Boston.  He was 65.  There is hope for us all!  The dinner was outside on the plaza overlooking the Memorial grounds.  As the sun set it was a perfect evening to be outside.

Back to the hotel to chill out for the evening and to get psyched.  As I get ready, I want to say much must I appreciate all the calls and emails with good wishes.  The support I get from the Tampa Galloway team is awesome.  I'll be thinking of our group as I set off in the morning.

More tomorrow after the race.  On to Day 3...