Last Saturday was showtime. It was the 6th annual Akron Roadrunner Marathon (and half-marathon), and my second attempt at the half in Akron (my third half overall). I was running it again with my running partner (and boss), Jim, and Mer and Jim’s wife Andy came out to support us.

I described the course in a good amount of detail last year, so I’ll spare you the play-by-play. Some things of interest were different this year. The first was around mile two or so. Jim’s breathing sounded forced, so I asked him how he was doing. He replied that he was okay, but he seemed to be struggling to me. Within a half mile of there, I started to pull away from Jim. I felt bad about it, but I wanted to run well (I was feeling very strong).

Around mile three, I got to see Mer for the first time. She was going nuts in the crowd as always, and I pulled aside and kissed her as is our tradition (dating back to my first marathon in 1998). The crowd around Mer thought it was cute.

Mile 4-5 was rough – it is hilly, and I was fighting some slight pain in my right hip and right Achilles. I was thinking I might have to slow down, but then I crested the hill and was able to rest going down the hill on the other side (thanks for that tip, Mr. Easter, my high school coach!).

I had eaten a TON of food to prepare for the race. I had put on FIVE pounds from Friday morning to Saturday morning. Turns out this was a little too much food – I felt uncomfortable in my stomach, especially when I had Powerade during the race – I actually had to switch to just water after only 6 miles.

I kept missing the mile markers, so between miles six and nine I thought I was way off my pace from last year. I came up on ten miles, and started doing some math, and suddenly realized that my pace had me very, very close to my last year’s time. I tried to maintain my speed. I was boosted by seeing Mer for the second time, with another kiss. I was also cheered on (in a non-lip way) by a friend that was at the race to cheer for her husband – that was a happy surprise.

I got on to the lonely and difficult Innerbelt, a four-lane highway that is mostly a slight uphill for the first half, and is about two miles long. It is right after the marathon and half separate from each other, and so most of the runners leave, and the crowds disappear. It is rough.

I kept checking my watch, and I continued to see that I was going to be very close to last year’s time. The sad thing was that I could not remember what my time was. I knew it was 1:30-something, and I thought it was 1:34 or 1:35. I hit the last stretch leading up to the stadium (the ballpark where the Akron Aeros play is the finish), and I was hurting but kept at it. I managed to cross the finish line in 1:35 something, but I forgot to stop my watch, so I was not sure what my official time was.

It turns out that Jim had a heck of a race – he was feeling really bad, and considered dropping out of the race around mile four. He decided to keep going and treat it as a training run, and then he got a second wind back around mile eight. He finished in 1:37, only about 20 seconds slower than last year – that is a remarkable race for starting poorly.

I got home and looked up my time, and I was very happy. I came in 1:35:34, which was a personal best time by seven seconds. I told you it was close! Given that I was 10 pounds heavier for this race compared to last year, and that it was 5-10 degrees warmer, I was thrilled at this race. I felt as if I ran it well, and I had very little left at the end.

The crowd support for the race was decent, but I had not remembered that there were a few stretches where the spectators got thin. There were two high school bands on the course (one band was positioned so it could be heard three times during the race), two (church?) choirs, and one rock band. The rock band was probably driving people around them nuts – they had a good sound, but they kept singing “There goes my hero / He’s ordinary” over and over. That was awesome for me as a runner, and cheered me up quite a bit (this was around mile seven), but I’m not sure how the people around them were reacting.

The race was well run (ha!). Kudos to Akron. For those who care, here are the finishing details for my race:

13.1 miles
Finish time: 1:35:34
Pace: 7:18 per mile
Overall place: 60th out of 1582 finishers (top 4%)
Gender place: 53rd out of 785 finishers (top 7%)
Division (age) place: 6th out of 129 finishers (top 5%)

10k time: 44:51 (7:14 pace)
15k time: 1:07:46 (7:17 pace — 7:24 pace from 10k to 15k)
Last 3.8 miles – 7:35 pace