Mill Creek 1/2 Recap

I must start this post by saying that Michele and I have coined this 1/2 marathon as "the worst course ever"!! Here is a brief description of the course from the website: This is the race to come and challenge yourself. You have 13.1 miles to complete 19 hills.

We arrived in Youngstown yesterday afternoon. We headed to second sole and grabbed our packets then tried to find the start of the race. Well, it turns out we were in Boardman and not Youngstown so we were on the wrong side of the park. One of our high school classmates actually lives in the area so we got in touch with her and she showed us how to get there. After we found the race site, the three of us headed to Olive Garden for dinner. After we loaded up on the carbs, Michele and I headed back to my brother's apartment and talked for hours about anything and everything. Michele showed me a website where I could look up my old race results (like from when I was in high school and college). It was really cool to see. I guess I have slowed with age because my times were quite impressive back then and I often placed top three in my age group. After we talked for what seemed like hours, we headed to bed.

We got up at 6:30 this morning and had our coffee, ate some breakfast, and got ready for the race and headed out around 7:45 to pick up our timing chips. They were actually ankle band chips which I had never experienced before today (they were sponsored by road ID). We posed for a quick picture and hit the bathrooms twice. At 8:45 we were off. The first two miles weren't too bad as they were downhill. We both felt good and were doing well. Around mile four the hills really got to me and Michele pulled away from me. I just couldn't keep the pace. The word hill doesn't do this course justice. You would think you were to the top of the hill just to find out you had to make a small turn and go up the rest of the hill. I was able to keep Michele in sight until around mile 11 and then I didn't see her again until the finish line. Michele finished in 1:56:49.20 and placed 12th in her age group. I came across in 1:58:35.30 and placed 7th in my age group. Michele's dad was at the finish which was great. We talked to him for awhile and had him take some pictures. Michele and I both had some problems with our IT bands today. The ironic part is that we had problems at the same spot on the course. We also were in agreement that we felt like we were walking up one of the hills even though we were running. We were both happy with our times on "the worst course ever". It is certainly not an easy course to run a PR on. All in all, we had a great time. We are going to run the Pittsburgh 1/2 in May to get ready for Cleveland. I will be adding some hill work outs and I few more races so that maybe, just maybe I can actually maintain a decent pace and run the entire race with Michele!! I am seriously contemplating running the St. Malachi 5 Miler this Saturday. Anyone have any opinions, suggestions based on the fact that I will be six days out from today's race?



Michele and I before the race in the heated recreation center

Me with my medal

Michele with her medal

Michele and I after the race

My hips and IT band are very sore. I stopped at Dick's tonight and bought a foam roller in the hopes of being able to stretch things out. After that I headed to the store to buy some epson salts to soak in tonight but I saw this and decided to give it a whirl. With that said I am off to soak .

Keep running, you're simply the best, and you inspire me!!

Pre-race preparation

Well, tomorrow is the Mill Creek 1/2 Marathon. Yesterday was my last workout before the race. I had a jewelry party for my step sister-in-law last night so by the time I got out the door to run it was 10 PM. I have never run outside that late but I didn't want to run on the treadmill . The air was brisk but not cold. I ended up running a mile loop in my development three times to get in my three miles. I chose to run the loop because the loop is covered with street light after street light. I ran very slow and easy. 29:09 for 3 miles (9:38, 9:32, 9:54).

Now I am packing and getting ready to head to Youngstown. My brother has been kind enough to give me and my "cuz" access to his apartment for the night. The best part of that is that he is about 10 minutes from the start line! You have to love that. Now the crazy thing is that my brother is single and lives alone so I can't rely on his cupboards and refrigerator to be stocked so not only am I packing my running gear, I am also packing my "go to" foods for pre and post race fueling.

"Cuz" and I are going to second sole this afternoon to pick up our packets. We may try and take a gander at the course after that and then finish up the night with carb loading at Olive Garden. I am so excited! I can't believe it is finally here!

Keep running, you're simply the best and you inspire me!!

Perfect 10

Today's long run was another scaled back 10 miler in preparation for the Mill Creek 1/2 in two weeks. I was very happy to see the temperature was around 45* and the sun was shining when I headed out this afternoon. I planned to run around a 9:20 pace today since my training schedule called for an easy long run. Once I got out there I was feeling really good and decided to just run how I felt. The temperature threw me off since I am used to bundling up lately. I had to unzip my windbreaker after the one mile mark. By the end of mile two, the gloves came off. As I got to mile 5 I heard the horn of a train indicating it's approach at a railroad crossing. Fortunately, I was still about a 1/2 mile away from the crossing and the train was gone when I approached so I didn't have to stop and wait. In true Ohio weather form, the sun went down at mile 7 and my hands were instantly freezing. The gloves went back on and the windbreaker was zipped back up for the last 3 miles.

Mile 1-- 9:09
Mile 2-- 9:00
Mile 3-- 9:22 (slow steady incline)
Mile 4-- 9:15 (spent 1/4 mile telling a dog to go back home)
Mile 5-- 9:07
Mile 6-- 9:14
Mile 7-- 9:07
Mile 8-- 9:04 (nice downhill)
Mile 9-- 9:01
Mile 10-- 8:41

Time-- 1:31.00
Avg Mile-- 9:06

Today's run was great. I felt like I could have kept running after the 10 miles but of course I respected my training and ended the run.

Keep running, you're simply the best and you inspire me!!