I ran half marathon number twenty last weekend at the Air Force Half Marathon in Dayton. My first experience with this race was last year when I ran a then-PR of 1:50.01. This year I had no aspirations of running a PR and simply wanted to run a good, hard race.
Friday went well as I made the trek from Tiffin to Dayton for the expo at the Nutter Center. This is my favorite race expo, surpassing even the Columbus Marathon. There are so many cool vendors there, many of which I haven't seen at any races. Packet pickup was a breeze which speaks to the organization of this race. I visited with some Dayton friends during the day and stayed with a friend in nearby Xenia the night before the race.
Race morning was cool and I made the drive to the Air Force base at 6:00. Even though the half marathon didn't start until 8:30, it was best to get there early as parking can be a nightmare otherwise. I sat in the car and read on my Kindle until about 7:30 or so. The long walk to the race start was enough to warm me up and I felt ready to go.
I started the race at a very conservative pace, knocking the first few miles out at a 9:10 pace. You know that my training has been very inconsistent this year if you've been following the blog. I didn't want to even have a shot at a PR because I knew I would die during the late miles if I went out fast. But things were about to become very interesting.
Somewhere during mile 4 we made a right hand turn that I didn't recall from last year's race. Races are bound to have little changes from year to year, so I thought nothing of it. A race official then came running towards us calling out that the half marathoners were going the wrong way. That's right. The leaders took a right turn when the shouldn't have and, to my recollection, there wasn't a sign telling us where to go. Those in the front of the pack ran about an extra two miles. I'm pretty sure I did an extra half mile or so, which got to me as my only goal for the race was to break two hours.
We turned around and made up the ground, but it was an absolute nightmare with marathoners trying to pass us and all of us merging back with the other half marathoners. I tried to settle into a good pace after this fiasco, but I never quite felt right. All I kept thinking about is that I have roughly four and a half minutes to make up. I stopped taking split times after the turnaround since my time wasn't accurate. The first few miles after that were decent but not great. I did take a gel at mile 6 and that gave me a little boost. Looking at my watch, I knew a sub-2 was still attainable as long as I didn't do anything stupid.
The hill at mile 8 wasn't nearly as bad as I remembered it from last year's race. The downhill helped and we made our way behind Wright State University. This stretch didn't seem as long as last year either. I started taking Gatorade during this stretch and felt pretty good for the last few miles. I picked up the pace at mile 10 and was able to hold it until the finish. Final time (with the turnaround)- 1:56.05
I'm pretty happy with my final time, especially considering the turnaround. The race is taking a lot of hits for this problem. There was a similar issue in the full marathon last year. I'm not terribly upset about it, but I'm obviously not pleased either. This was my second time doing this race and it is a long drive from Tiffin. I'll probably consider doing the Akron Marathon next year in place of this race.
Next race: Tiffin Firefighters 5k- Tiffin, OH
