The race is extremely easy to get to as FW and I parked at a nearby school within three blocks of the start. The organizers were nice enough to offer race day packet pick up for those who couldn't make it the night before. FW and I could tell it was going to get hot as I went through my warm-ups, though she was looking forward to going to the nearby coffee shop after the start. I'll leave the description to her in her spectator report at the end of this post!
This race is in its fourth year but it's very well organized. They even had pacers, which is nice for an event with fewer than 1000 runners. I lined up near the front with the 1:40 pace group and hoped to stay in that range. The gun went off and we started our trek out of Medina.
Miles 1-5: This was the easy part of the course as it was a net downhill for the first six or so miles. I decided to go against typical race strategy and start off fast and try to maintain in the second half. You'll see by my splits that this strategy wasn't perfect as there was nothing consistent about race. We weaved north (remember the turns) away from downtown and started heading east. This part of the course was nothing difficult and I started out way too fast. I started feeling it right around mile 5 as we started around Lake Medina. Here are the splits for the first five: (1) 6:57, (2) 6:53, (3) 7:07, (4) 7:00, (5) 7:20. Well, I guess this was consistent, but it was way too fast! I actually would have had a 10k PR in this race.
Miles 6-10: The section around Lake Medina was actually the roughest because there was no shade and the sun was already beating down. I didn't start walking quite yet but wanted to. We then headed south and entered a residential area. I started walking soon into mile 7. There were a decent number of people out and about cheering on the runners. That was appreciated, but I just could not pull it together and sprinkled in more quick walk breaks on hills. My splits started suffering, which I did expect. Here are the splits for this section: (6) 7:33, (7) 8:17, (8) 7:45, (9) 8:19, (10) 7:53. You could tell I was up and down during this section and barely holding on to a good time.
Miles 11-13.1: And the wheels completely fall off! I pretty well gave up here and just tried to hold on for a good time. The heat and humidity was relentless and I was done. I got passed by several people here but I was still running a decent race. We completed our semi-circle around Medina and headed back north to the finish line. I did have a very good last mile as I was able to finish without walking. The final push of this race is very tough as it's about half a mile at a pretty good grade. Here are the final splits: (11) 8:52, (12) 8:48, (13) 7:20.
Despite my very up and down race (figuratively and literally), I was able to finish in a respectable 1:40:31. This was good enough for 7/49 and 52/790 overall. Not a bad effort considering the horrible heat and humidity.
There's not much time before my last half marathon for the first half of the year as I'm doing a freebie in NW Ohio in a few days!
Next race: Hearland Series Ohio Half Marathon- Bryan, OH
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