I’m feeling pretty good sitting in my hotel room next to the air conditioner right now – especially after running 26.2 miles in pretty tough conditions.

It was in the mid 60s, perhaps warmer, at the start of Grandma’s Marathon this morning, and about 80 degrees when I crossed the finish line with a time of 3:34:08, more than an 8-minute improvement over my time here last year.

That’s my second fastest time for the marathon, and about 2 1/2 minutes slower than my Fargo time 6 weeks ago. It was no secret that I wasn’t happy with my time in Fargo, and hoped to run 3:25 here. My feelings after this race, though, are polar opposite of those in Fargo. Simply put: I’m ecstatic with the time on a much tougher course (I didn’t remember all the rolling hills in the first 10 miles) and all the other factors going into today’s race, particularly the hot and humid weather. To put it in perspective, I typically finish in about the top 15 percent. While not official yet, today I finished 468 overall, which will probably put me in the top 8 or 9 percent. As of this writing, 4,911 runners had crossed the finish line.

Despite the warm temperatures, I didn’t abandon my game plan and adjust my strategy. For the most part, I stuck to my plan – allowing for some variation in pace in the early miles. None of them were too fast, though, and I’m happy to have executed it nearly without a flaw.

Like last year, though, I ended up with cramps, this time at mile 22, about a quarter mile short of Lemon Drop Hill. Those plagued me last year, and again this year, as this is the only place I seem to get them. I’ve never had them in other races or training runs.

Here are my times during the race:

10K – 49:37

Half – 1:43:45

20 Miles – 2:39:45

Soon, I’ll post the mile splits with some commentary, but I’m headed out to walk off some of the stiffness and get some food. But, before I do that, I’d like to send out a huge congratulations to Christopher Raabe, a fellow Minnesota native and NDSU alum, who dominated today’s field and won the race by over 3 minutes, a pretty amazing gap among elites.