2008 Road Runner Akron Half Marathon

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds... but 10,000 runners will!

There was a record turnout for this year's Akron Marathon. Over 10,000 runners. Of course with the relay events, they weren't all on the course at the start, but that's a great showing none the less. The paragraph above came to mind when I saw a USPS truck stopped at an intersection as we ran by. He wasn't going anywhere for a while!

As for the run, I chose to run the half this year, and to save myself for the full in Columbus in 20 days. Next year I'm planning on doing the full at Akron and perhaps just the half at Columbus. Maybe the full, you know, just for fun.

I had a great race this year. All the speed work on the track really came through for me in this race. Although my mile splits did slow a bit from mile 1 to mile 13, they were all fairly even and fast (for me). I set yet another PR for the half marathon this year (3rd time) at 1:33:59. The results page is down right now, but if I remember correctly, I placed 9th in my age group and 50th overall. Not too shabby! Here are my mile splits:

6:44 / 6:59 / 7:01 / 6:53 / 7:12 / 7:08 / 7:19 / 7:28 / 7:10 / 7:21 / 7:18 / 7:18 / 8:02 (1.1 mile). I also had a 10K split of 43:37 and a 15K split of 1:06:20. The 15K is faster than my previous PR for that distance, and I'll need to check the 10K time. It's going to be close.

I felt really good Saturday. I had to park way down on the south end of downtown and jog in to the starting area. I had a little caffeine that morning which may have helped a little. The porta-potty lines were too long for me to get one last visit in, so I just lined up toward the front, about 25 feet back or so. I had a great start and felt really good going out a decent clip. I spotted Connie from the training group, and a world class ultra-marathoner I might add, caught her and ran with her for about a mile. I had to slow my pace a bit so I wished her luck and let her go. It was mid 60's for temps and a bit humid, so I couldn't maintain her pace for very long. Another thing about Akron is that the course is certainly NOT flat. Your pace will change as you run along the course. But for every hill, there's a descent, so it averages out nicely.

Having run the full last year, I wasn't familiar with the half course. They're identical until they split apart around mile 10 or 11. But as the full heads DOWN into the valley, the half begins to climb UP on Rt. 59. I wasn't expecting the elevation increase that late in the race and that close to the finish. I began experiencing some minor calf cramping, but was able to run through it.

It was an all around exceptional event. Count me in for next year. Especially with the way the economy is heading down the crapper, I'm going to be focusing on events closer to home in 2009. And this is one event I'm glad is so close to home.

Mr. P