Ashland Half Marathon 12/05/2009

This race is not very big and is not very easy and is always very cold, so why did we do it again. It's a race of course. Nice people, a well run race for this time of year and for a good cause I believe it supports the high school and middle school cross country teams, maybe Medina should try some fundraisers instead of charging $660 to run cross country next year. We arrived a little later than I would have liked and by the time we checked in went back to the car and tried to stay warm it was close to starting time with no warm up, I need a warm up even more when it's this cold, it was maybe 28 degrees when we finished the race. Since my only goal for this race was to break 1:40 I just figured go out slow and and get warmed up then go, nothing ever works out right but at least I didn't hurt myself. I was talking to a few people I knew at the start and the start was late over 10 minutes so we were all shivering and moving around and waiting, finally they said on your mark and go. What was I doing, I was freezing so I went out of there like a rocket and when I hit the first half mile in about 3:10 I slowed way down but still hit mile one at 7:01 and mile three in 21:12, too fast for no warm up so I held back some more. I ended up running from mile 4 through mile 9 with Scott (an insurance guy from Ashland) he was 49 so no competition and we ran and talked quite a bit holding around a 7:30 pace for those miles then at mile 9 I decided to pick it up just a bit and caught the next guy and him and I pushed the pace down for a couple miles til I left him to. There were not to many people out there in my sight except a girl I had my sights on catching, I caught up with her around mile 11 and she says I will only be the second person to pass her since she jumped in at the relay point. She was looking to break 45 minutes for her leg which I'm not sure how long it was but I thought I'll just run her in from here and I stayed with her. She was a Ashland college runner and was holding near a 7:10 pace with me til the last 1/4 mile when my fellow MCRR friend came out to run me in. I intended on staying with her and pushing her to the finish but Steve and I took off and she stayed where she was maybe finishing only 15-20 seconds back and she thanked me afterwards for pushing her and helping her get her goal. I finished at 1:36:45 (seven minutes faster than last year) and came in third in my age group that won me my second winter hat prize in 2 years. We went from the race to Buehlers to change our clothes so we could attend the Subway Challenge Series Banquet where Marsha and I both placed 2nd in our age groups for the year. The price went up from 25 to 40 bucks for next years Subway Series but it's still a bargain. Marsha wasn't sure she wanted to sign up but for that money we get a very nice summer picnic after one race, this banquet and a embroidered shirt plus placing in our age groups every year we have received 30 bucks each in gift certificates.
Today I slept in and got up and had a planned 20 mile run, I left here at 10:25 and ran 4 miles to Jeannine's and Marsha, JN and I ran about 3 miles of trails then Janet joined us for the rest. I was planning on running home from Jeannine's but I was getting sore legs so I took Janet's offer and she brought me home, 15 today and 15 yesterday was good. Next weekend we are planning 20 for Saturday and looking at 30 for Sunday.