Date: April 28, 2013
Location: Toledo, OH
Finish Time: 1:32:00
Pace: 7:02 min/mi
Racing in every state is a really fun idea when you start. And with each state you get to 'add to your collection' so to speak. I can't wait for the trip to Hawaii! But, sometimes you have to stay close to home to squeeze in another state. Ohio and Michigan have a pretty heavy rivalry between states. I usually shudder when I see an Ohio plate driving on our roads, but I know they feel just as out of place as we do when we go down to the Buckeye State. To check O-H-I-O off my list, I decided to stick my toe across the border and do Toledo. Its within driving distance of home so the morning isn't too early and sometimes I forget that we ever lost the war for Toledo. The race turned out to be a good one and remains my PR on a half-marathon course.
By the time I ran this race, a small family contingency was now traveling with me. Janel was running the 5K with my mom and my Aunt Pam and Uncle Ed once again did a good 5K walk. The race started at the University of Toledo, a good MAC school. The campus is pretty nice, and the area of Toledo we ran through was filled with nice neighborhoods and parks. The only thing that made this race a bit nasty was that it started to rain at the starting line and didn't stop.
I was feeling good for the race. I'd been training for a long time at this point. The last race I was planning on doing was in New Jersey in November and Hurricane Sandy washed that race away. So I had been training for months upon months at this point and had my next race, the Seattle Marathon, scheduled for a few months from Toledo. That meant that my legs were in shape and 13 miles was a normal run at this point. I decided I wanted to push it. I was going to PR no matter what, I just didn't know how well I was going to do.
I started off and after about 2 miles my glasses had to come off. It was too rainy to run with them. They steamed up and got water all over and I could see it was a lost cause. It didn't matter. Glasses were only going to slow me down. Just kidding.
I found a group of guys who were running a pretty good pace that had American Flag shorts on. They had pretty good spirits and were reacting to the crowd who cheered us on through the race. I stuck with them for a while and soon realized that these guys I was listening to were jerks! They weren't reacting in a thankful way, they were making fun of people! They made fun of spectators, racers they passed, people who were just out and about on a race. I realized these guys might have been cross country runners from the local high school or college or something and thought that they were so much better than everyone else. From that moment on, I knew that I was going to beat them.
I started to distance myself from them, though we were running at about the same pace. I was doing the math of remaining miles and knew that I was going to be okay and I felt like I had energy in the tank to keep the pace going. I also knew I needed to prepare for when they kicked it into a different gear to ensure that I beat them.
In the park, the race split between half marathoners and full marathoners. The half marathoners turned back to campus while the full kept going. American flag boys turned for the full and I went to the half. I realized then that my attempts to beat them were going to be successful, but that we were running different races.
With the flag boys gone and the race thinning out, I started to find some difficulty in running. There were still about 5 miles left, the rain was soaking me to the bone, and I knew that I was running quite fast as there were not many people around me. I was ahead of the pack. All I could do was to tell myself that so long as I ran to the end, I would be getting a PR. So I kept pushing.
When I came back onto campus, there was a curved route to enter into the football stadium so spectators were lined all along the path to greet you back into the stadium. People were constantly telling me that I ran a good race. I knew I must be coming in pretty quick.
I turned a corner to enter the stadium and I saw my parents, aunt and uncle, and Janel cheering me on. They too were completely soaked, but they were still cheering me on! I crossed the line at 1:32:00, obliterating my previous record. It might have been the rain or maybe those American Flag boys, but whatever the case, I ran a fast race.
Toledo had some pretty cool parting gifts. We each got a glass mug to take home and some really tasty snacks. We even found a microbrew beer tent that was handing out some free samples. Had I not been freezing and soaked it would have been a very enjoyable day. Instead, we hopped in the car and zipped back to Hillsdale where I sang in a concert that afternoon.
It was a great day. It was a lot of fun. And I suppose Ohio wasn't too bad a of a state, my fourth completed in my quest for 50.
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