I'm way behind (again!) on writing the blog. Tomorrow's the Columbus Half Marathon and I haven't even given my report on this race. I'll keep this one pretty short.
I made the trek to Tiffin to stay with friends and then to Findlay to run with a friend the next day. We knew this would be a smaller race and I was really just looking for a good hard run prior to the Columbus Half Marathon. The weather, however, turned pretty nasty the day before the race. We got some rain but the wind was terrible! Race morning was very cold and I of course forgot to bring gloves and a hat. It was a miserable start.
We started out from Riverbend Park and ran west just north of the Findlay Reservoir. This was the worst part of the course as the wind was blowing right in our faces. It felt like a death march. I started out at a very conservative pace for the first five miles or so. Just under 9:00/mile was what I was looking for. We made a loop around the reservoir and I decided to speed up some after the five mile mark.
Not much to report after that. Lots of cornfields. The race itself was very well organized, but the scenery was nothing to write home about. We had a strange little turnaround roughly seven miles in where we ran about a half mile down a new road and then right back. I would have liked to have run more in Riverbend Park and cut out this portion. We then had a LONG straightaway to just past the ten mile mark. The wind wasn't terrible and I was actually able to run a great pace along this part of the course, sometimes getting in under 8:00/mile.
We made our way back to the park and I came in in a surprising 1:46:18. This was good enough for 15/99 overall and only 30 seconds away from placing in my age group.
Next race: Columbus Half Marathon- Columbus, OH
