Race Report: Earth Day Half Marathon

This past Sunday I ran in the Earth Day Half Marathon in Gambier, Ohio.  I stayed with friends who live in Columbus about an hour away.  I chose this race in part because Gambier is really beautiful - Kenyon College's campus is everything that a small liberal arts school's should be.  I also have a number of friends in Columbus, and I wanted to see them.  This race provided the perfect opportunity.

My friend L. who was also running the half, my husband M., and I drove up to Gambier dark and early on Sunday morning.  L. and I still needed to pick up our race packets, and even though we knew it would be a small race with fewer than 500 participants between both the full marathon and half marathon, we wanted to make sure we had a bit of spare time if we needed it.  After a muffin and a stop at Tim Hortons to get a cup of coffee for this addicted fool, we were on our way.

We arrived in Gambier, found parking, and checked in at the athletic center on the beautiful campus of Kenyon College.  The temperature was still in the 30s and there was a wind advisory on because of gusts of up to 45 miles per hour.  We stayed in the gym as long as possible.

Right before the race we headed outside to line up the track.  The race started just outside the athletic center.  Both races began with a quick loop around the track and then a run up the hill to circle the village of Gambier, before hitting the Kokosing gap trail for an out and back.  There were no pacers, but I was wearing my Garmin.  L. was hoping to set a PR, so started out ahead of me.  I saw M. about one mile in.  He was trying to find an open coffee shop to do some work until heading back out to cheer for us at the finish.

I decided that, since I was feeling pretty good, that I would run the first few miles at a pace that would put in a position to have a 2:20 finish time.  I told myself that I would slow down if I needed to or if my back started twinging.  I had a really good first few miles.  I forgot to set my Garmin to record laps automatically and since I wanted to take water at the aid stations I didn't keep track of my splits.  However, I know that I was running about a 10:15-10:30 min/mile for the first six miles.  The course was relatively flat after the first big hill, and we were mostly sheltered from the wind because of the position of the path behind the hill. I saw L. heading back toward the campus and knew that she was on her way to a PR.  At mile 8 I stopped to use the biffy and lost a minute or so doing that.  I was still feeling pretty good when I got to the turn around on the path around the 9-mile mark.

I had been running alone, but I didn't mind.  I was enjoying being out on a scenic path on a brisk day.  However, around mile 10 my butt and hip started to hurt.  I took a walk break for a minute or so and then started running again, but I had to keep the pace a bit slower or my right buttock would start to feel like it had a pinched nerve in it and my right hip continued to feel strained.  I took another couple of walk breaks and tried to stretch out my right side.  Around mile 9 I had thought there might be a possibility to PR in the Earth Day Half but I saw that chance had slipped away.  By mile 12, I was just hoping to still finish in 2:20.  I decided that I would run to the end without anymore walk breaks, and I tried to push the pace a little bit more for the last half mile.  When I hit the track for the final loop, I knew I didn't have a fast final kick for that last stretch, but I held my pace steady.  I finished the Earth Day Half with an official time of 2:21:19.  My time was 5 minutes off my PR, but it was almost 7 minutes faster than the half-marathon that I ran back in November in San Antonio.  Considering that a few weeks ago, I could barely go from sitting to standing and could not bend over at all, I'll take it! L. finished around 2:02, breaking her PR by several minutes!

My friend KT and her dog Jack braved the wind and came to cheer us on as we finished the race! Jack apparently got really tired from watching all that running from the sidelines.

Although I admit to being an energy parasite during racing events, I thought this smaller race had a great atmosphere.  There's definitely something to be said for not having to wait for long lines of people at the biffies before, during, or after the race.  From my perspective, the event was well-organized.  Cheerful and enthusiastic volunteers clapped and shouted for us runners, and all of the aid stations had plenty of water and Powerade. The post-race food smelled fantastic.  They were serving up organic chili, sandwiches, chips, fruit, and cookies.  Since we had brunch plans back in Columbus, I just grabbed a bottle of water and a banana and cookie to tide me over for the ride back.

Overall, I'm really happy with my first race of 2011.  A beautiful course and the opportunity to see friends might just bring me back to the Earth Day Half next year.