A Little Labor for Labor Day Weekend

Based upon my long run from last week, I wanted to go out for about 2:45 this week. I estimated that would get me about 18 or so miles, maybe a little more. What I ended up doing was joining a large group run over on the Road Runner Akron Marathon course. One of the guys from the club posted it in the forum on the website. Fortunately I found it and changed my plans. It didn't take much for me to decide to run with others versus running by myself.

The plan was to run 20 miles of the course, cutting out about 6 miles on the south side of Akron. 20 miles is a little bit more than I was intending to do this weekend. But only a little bit. I felt like I could have gone 20 last week, so knowing that, I was confident I wouldn't have any problems doing the distance this week. What I didn't expect was to maintain a decent pace throughout the run. The finish time, by my watch, was 2:54:55, averaging 8:40-ish miles. We certainly started out faster than that and finished slower. But that's to be expected. If I can maintain that kind of pace in Columbus, I'm going to shatter my PR of 4:15. I'm extremely excited at the prospect, but I have to keep the emotions in check and just let the run happen on it's own.

The Akron course is unique for a marathon. It's fairly flat for the first half, then it drops down into the Cuyahoga River valley, climbing slowly out a few miles later. Much of the course is shaded, which wasn't an issue this morning because we were blessed with fog. Just enough to obscure the sun for most of the run. Plus we started at 6:30 AM, getting out ahead of the heat. Even with the hills, I like the course. It's scenic and changing, giving you different things to notice while running. The loads of spectators weren't out this morning, but they will be on race day. Some of the best of any race I've done. I'd rank them right up there with the spectators along the Columbus Marathon route. I look forward to next year when I plan on participating in the full Akron Marathon again. It's only the half for me this year. But I'm glad I've got one 20 miler under my belt before Columbus. Now only one more to go.

I would like to thank Frank for posting the notice about the group run. Otherwise I would never have known about it. I would also like to thank Ladd and Chuck for keeping the pace up and for the good conversation during the run. And thanks to Vertical Runner in Hudson for organizing the whole thing. Even though I haven't been up to their store since the Second Sole opened here in Medina, I appreciate their involvement in the running community.

Have a great Labor Day weekend everyone.

Mr. P