akron half marathon

Whoops! A little late on this one. But I didn't forget!!! 

I ran the Akron Half Marathon on Saturday, September 29th. 

My goal for this race was to at least run it at the assigned training pace of 8:30 (1:49 finish) however as the date drew closer and the weather looked better... I was really hoping to PR for a sub 1:41 (7:45 pace). One of my confidence boosters leading up to this was that I had already run the first 12.5 miles of the race during my 20 mile training run a few weeks back. The weather for that run was rainy, a little bit humid, and just overall wet- I also was by myself for most of the first 12.5. So I knew what I was getting into as far as hills too.

Not flat. I was excited to run hard on a hilly course since Marine Corps is not flat either.

I woke up at 4a to have my usual banana, water and coffee, then made my way down to the parking garage. I got there around 5:45a. Met up with a few of the Oiselle girls and then used the bathroom many times per usual.

It was a little more warm and humid than anticipated (57 degrees, 72% humidity) but still much better than...this entire summer.

The start was great. There was no nonsense - played the national anthem, then they started playing Imagine Dragons - Natural (I already liked the song and then fully gained an appreciation of how awesome a pump up song is) while they got right into the 10-15 second countdown to start. Akron doesn't mess around.

I powered through the first 6 miles: 7:27, 7:31, 7:33, 7:58, 7:31, 7:46. I had my first gel right at mile 6 while running back up the bridge we came down when we started. The aid stations weren't at the best spots for me to have water/gatorade with the gel so I had to have it on the fly. Which I have done many times... Right past mile 7 I walked a little bit through the aid station to have some water and gatorade.. 

Then I had some really bad side stitches..almost shooting pain on my right side of my stomach in miles 7-8, and still felt the effects in mile 9 too. Splits for these miles were 8:21, 8:19, 8:34. When I was walking the people passing were so freaking encouraging it was awesome. Part of me wonders if this pain was also due to the fact that these miles were pretty tough - I didn't remember how long of a uphill these were from the training run..in my memory I powered through these miles on the training run. I also did the math at this point and figured out I was not going to hit the PR. Probably shouldn't have done that.

Finally we hit a nice long downhill through a neighborhood. I have forgot to mention...we passed a Swenson's around mile 2.5 and they were handing out milkshakes. Then not even a half mile later there were people in a neighborhood handing out beer and liquor shots. And here around mile 9, there were residents handing out marshmallows and kids handing out halloween candy.  It was silly and made me happy. The marshmallow smell did not excite me as much as it usually does though.

Also on another side note, the Akron Children's Hospital was one of the main sponsors of the race. So they had "Heroes" - children who have overcome a lot, and/or have chronic long-term conditions at random points through the course holding out a styrofoam circle that said "Press Here for Power" - it was super cute and I recognized a bunch of the kids from the race day materials they advertised. The kids were loving it and I tried to make my way over to wherever they were to press their styrofoam buttons for power! 

Miles 10 - 12 were on a long stretch of road. My splits were 7:54, 8:14, 7:48.  There was an aid station around mile 11 where I had my second gel - I really need to work on drinking liquids while running..that's what slowed me down. It is mostly the paper cup situation that foils me.

Then at mile 12 I gunned it- I was ready to be done but of course there were a few more hills to get through in downtown Akron, however the crowd support was there so that was great. 

And I know I gunned it because my apparently heart rate literally shot up right at mile 12 until the end. For most of the race it was around 160-162 which is normal for a hard training run (for me). It was above 170 for the first .8, chilled above 160 for .2 and then above 180 for the last .1. (peaked at 189 ; 193 is my max) So this is interesting - not sure how accurate it is to be honest - I remember I was putting forth a strong effort but it didn't feel like... terrible. I felt fine when I finished.

I finished in 1:43:33.

This is my second fastest half marathon time. My fastest half marathon had a 1274ft descent..no hills to climb either. So... I am still very happy with this more than a week later. 

Met up with Oiselle ladies after!

Like I mentioned earlier, I felt fine when I finished. I felt like I could have ran more at that pace which is great. I even stayed after for a while - sitting cross legged on the ground watching some people I know finish and got up from that seated position fine, lol. That is huge to me. I ran 2 more miles later with Shane as he is training for the Marine Corps 10k, and those 2 miles were a struggle. Like I think I shuffled the first mile. 

Shane lives very close to the hardest miles of the marathon course so I went over and cheered for a little bit - it was so cool to see everyone battling through it. I didn't say anything dumb like "almost there" - I literally can't deal when someone says that at any point during a marathon.

Overall - I really enjoyed this race and would love to do it again next year. This was a great confidence boosting run for Marine Corps in just a few weeks!!!