2008 Rite Aid Cleveland Half Marathon

... And then the half marathon PR was 43 seconds faster. And once again, I wasn't expecting it. It was so wet this morning, I just wanted to finish without getting sick. My shoes and socks were nearly soaked just standing around waiting for the start. Wet socks are just miserable. But fortunately, I've discovered the most comfortable socks in the world, made by Balega. They're wonderful. No discomfort or blisters today. Unlike my friend Stimie who returned home with some serious battle scars.

I kept no splits today. I wasn't concerned with my time from mile to mile. The time on the course for mile one was 8:40. That was due to congestion at the start. I knew I would be going faster than that once the crowd spread out. I ended up averaging 7:27 miles, so I was definitely cranking them out. Even with the rain, which stopped eventually, I felt pretty good. So I just pushed as hard as I could, while still maintaining a certain comfort level. My finish time was 1:37:45. That's 43 seconds faster than the Capital City Half Marathon last month. That also put me at finishing 31 out of 581 for my age group and 150 out of 8,007 overall. Not too shabby. I'm really starting to enjoy unexpected pleasant surprises.

But my morning wasn't done when I crossed the finish line. I made my way back to the car, stashed some gear I didn't need anymore, had a few swigs of chocolate milk, and began working my way back down the course to meet up with the walkers. Mrs. P, Stimie, and The Wife were out there walking the half marathon. So I began jogging back down the course looking for them. I made it another 3 miles before our paths converged. They were a motley trio. Stimie was delirious from the pain of the massive blisters on his feet, shouting "It's Good to be Alive!" along the course from time to time. He also managed to bum a cigarette off of a fellow walker and make chit chat with the sorriest looking prostitute my eyes have ever had the misfortune to fall upon. (I'll never look at the colors red and black the same way again.) The Wife was nursing a sore ankle, but she powered through it with furious and amazing gusto. Mrs. P seemed to be just fine. She must have really been cracking the whip before I showed up, to inflict such pain upon her companions. (Just kidding Mrs. P) We made our way back into downtown and finished along with the 3:20 to 3:30 marathoners. A job well done.

I'm proud of Mrs. P for maintaining such an interest in participating in these events. She is even thinking of switching from the walking division to the running division for Columbus in the fall. I'm really proud of Stimie and The Wife for completing an event that's much farther than anything they've done so far. Even though they're a little worse for the wear, I think that signing up and committing to the distance was probably harder than actually finishing. I hope the experience was a good one and that they continue to pursue events like this.

I estimate I covered nearly 20 miles today between the running and walking. That's about 6.9 miles more than I was expecting. That got me excited, thinking ahead to Columbus in October. But I'm not going to think too much about it yet. There's plenty of training and racing to be done between now and then.