2008 Inland Trail Half Marathon

I decided to run the half marathon yesterday instead of the 5K. I really didn't know what to expect from a long run. It has been two weeks since Columbus and I hadn't done anything over 7 miles. And I didn't feel all that great doing that. So I was very pleasantly surprised when I felt great yesterday.

My time was 1:34:55. That's about a minute or so longer than my PR. I didn't expect a PR day, but that's certainly a course to do it on. It's flat and the wind is generally at your back, when you're not sheltered by trees anyway. I'm not an iPod runner, but this course made me think about it. When I ran this race last year, the weather was not nice. It was cold and blustery. The leaves had all dropped from the trees and it was generally grey all around. This year, the weather was beautiful. It was chilly at the start but it warmed steadily. The sun was out and there were still some great fall colors to enjoy. I had an enjoyable, steady run as seen in my mile splits: 7:25 / 7:18 / 7:14 / 7:29 / 7:19 / 7:19 / 7:25 / 7:20 / 7:31 / 7:18 / 7:30... and that's where I messed up my splits. I missed the mile 11 marker so that 7:30 is a little long and the remaining splits I have don't make sense to me today.

The course is so flat and the field is so small, that once you've settled into your pace, there is very little passing that occurs. Unless, of course, someone starts out too fast (which happened), too slow (which also happened), or is fluctuating (ding, ding there too!). There was a guy running with a heart rate monitor who came up on me and passed me. He got a little bit ahead of me before he came back. I could hear the thing beeping. When it started beeping faster, he would slow down. Eventually he dropped back behind me. I didn't turn around to look at any point to see where he or anyone else was behind me. I was able to make out people ahead of me, barely. It's hard to judge distances out there with no curves or elevations to go by.

Like I said, I felt good. No knee pain. No phantom pain in my foot. My breathing was right on. I started cramping a bit in the last mile, which prevented me from turning on the boosters and finishing hard. But that was fine as I didn't have to race anyone to the line. I ended up placing 3rd of 9 in my age group and 19th of 177 overall. Not too bad for two weeks after the marathon with minimal training in between.

Congrats to Mrs. P and Jr. P for running the 5K and placing 2nd each in their age groups. Congrats also to some other club runners yesterday: Ladd, Marsha, and Dan. Marsha won her age group and Dan placed second in his age group in the marathon.

Mr. P