"Sure," said Burke, "its fine, only hurts if I stretch it out too far during speed work. I think we should go ahead and try Skagit, sounds like we're healthy enough."

     "I'11 make arrangements for a place to stay, why don't you meet me Friday night in Seattle and we'll drive on up to Burlington, which is near the start," said Bill.

     That was it, Wednesday we decided to run the Skagit Flats Marathon on Saturday. Saturday morning we signed up, paid our money, pinned on our numbers and lined up with all the rest of the hundred or so runners at the beginning of, probably, the flattest marathon in the entire Northwest. If you saw a profile map of the Skagit Flats Marathon course, it would look like a large table top viewed from the edge with a single pea near one end. This marathon is so flat, that the only hill on the entire course is a bridge crossing the freeway during the first mile; tough, tough hill. The rest...flat, flat, flat.

    Our plan was to run no faster mile than ten minutes. This was fairly easy to do, especially since Bill chose to run with his calf wrapped in an Ace bandage and I was running in the gravel on the shoulder to reduce the impact. Every few miles I would stop to remove the rocks from my shoes and Bill would re-wrap his calf. This went on 'til about 12 or 14 miles, when Bill complained that his calf really hurt. I offered that the wrap might be too tight, so he took it off, ran a bit, looked over and said, "it doesn't hurt at all, I guess I'11 leave it off." Those of you who know Mayhall know that this is a signal.

    Sure enough, about 4 or 5 miles later, Bill had dropped back a bit. I stopped to remove the rocks from my shoes and he caught up; I asked if he was OK. He said he was but had stopped to take the insole out of his shoe. About this time a woman who had been running behind us ran slowly by saying she had thought she would never catch up, but that she knew she would when she found an insole on the road. Soon, off went the socks, which seemed OK until he got rocks in his shoes, probably leftovers from my shoes. You can begin to see the scenario and it was downhill (pun) from then on.     This marathon goes through coastal farm and ranch land. The landscape is absolutely beautiful and holds some unique surprises. At one point we came upon a water station, no volunteer, just a sort of serve yourself place with cups and huge jugs of water. So we poured several cups for the people around us and handed them out.

    At that same location, but across the road, we noticed a group of cow people on horses attempting to gather their herd of cattle together in a tighfir: group. The cows found the marathon people much more interesting, so every time they rounded up a cow, other cattle came over to see what was going on. I'm sure they had asked the volunteer to leave, hoping their cattle would be better behaved. Fortunately we were far back in the pack, so their herding attempts, hopefully, should have soon improved.

    During all this, our long run pace diminished to something rather indescribable, we were being passed by the infirm and near dead; in fact, we even had a funeral procession pass us around mile 20.

    Bill became dehydrated. The water stops could not quench his thirst. As those of you who know, unusual things happen to Mayhall late in marathons. At Skagit there was no savior with a lawn chair and bottle of juice, the water stops were infrequent (for his needs), so he began raiding yards looking for hoses hooked up to spigots which he turned on and satiated his thirst. This searching activity employed our minds through mile 25 at which point I ran on ahead to finish and then wait for Bill as I knew he would make it. When I crossed the finish line no one congratulated me or said good job, they just asked, "Where's your friend, is he OK?" I just laughed and said he's fine he'll be along pretty soon.