Yet again the girls and I travelled to the midwest to see my family for a few weeks this summer, and yet again, I am training to run TSFM at the end of July, thus taking marathon training on the road with me. Fortunately, running is nothing, if not flexible.

Fortunately, there isn’t a dearth of racing options near my family, and some QT on ye olde Google before I left California pointed me to the 2018 Lake Health HILL YEAH! Half Marathon in Kirtland, Ohio, just a few days after we arrived. A half marathon five weeks out from race day and with apparently so many hills that it comprised the race namesake? Sold. That’s exactly what I want, and when I want it, in the throes of marathon training.

If you’ve been reading this space for a while now, you may remember that I am consistently a poor HM runner. Shit always seems to hit the fan for me in these races, and the typical reasons include a) being in the thick of marathon training and thus, fatigued AF (since I don’t taper for them); b) GI distress, which happens probably 9.5 times out of 10 at this distance for me for some reason; c) shitty weather (eh, nothing over which I have control); and d) course topography (I have a penchant for seeking out and doing the “hard” races). Some of that I can control, sorta, but a lot of that I can’t. It’s fine. I feel like I race one good HM every few years, so we’ve been in a drought since late 2016, IIRC. I’m a mentally tough competitor, but for whatever reason, HMs of late have just been tough nuts to crack.  

So it was without really any semblance of expectation that I signed up for this race and thought even if it’s a horrible day where everything goes wrong, at least I’ll get some good road climbing in and some good simulation for TSFM. Perhaps that’s a rather defeatist way of approaching this HM challenge, but it is what it is. In the days preceding the race, Coach Lisa asked me how I wanted to approach it, and we both agreed that making it into a strong workout would be worthwhile and valuable at this point in my training. I had zero interest in going for a PR attempt here (see all the aforementioned reasons a paragraph earlier; my eyes are on a different prize right now), but if I was going to be driving nearly an hour each way, I wanted to at least make good use of my time.

Come race day, I arrived to the little farmpark area that hosted the half marathon and half marathon relay’s start and finish line, picked up my bib and shirt, and felt pretty chill: no race day nerves, a healthy bit of excitement to be doing a workout in the company of a lot of other people, but more than anything, just good ol’ gratitude to be there and to have the opportunity at all. That stuff is never lost on me. I ran a couple mile warm-up and quickly determined that it was going to be a humid race (add that challenge to the hills that we’d be encountering, why not?), making me pretty happy to be doing a workout and not actually racing-racing.

The race plan was to run the first five miles at goal marathon pace + 10 seconds; run the next five miles at HMRP for 3 minutes on, 2 minutes off; then run the final 5k at “GO!” I liked this approach because it’d give me a lot of opportunity to get a feel for changing gears many times mid-race which, conveniently, is my usual strategy at TSFM to help account for the changing elevation. 

I recalled reading in the course description that the entire course was rolling and that the two significant climbs were around miles four and eight. Most of the run was on backcountry roads (that were still open to traffic but were heavily patrolled by local police, thankfully), but there were a couple jaunts into some local preserves — first the Chapin Forest Reservation and later, the Penitentiary Glen Reservation —  with the former making me think of the Santa Cruz XC course, what with the super tall trees and just beautiful canopy. It was 85% a road race but still had a good mix of hilly trail stuff thrown in there for good measure with those two reservations and the starting/finishing area at Lake Metroparks. The mix was really awesome and not something that I’ve really experienced before in a race of this distance.

Running a really specific workout like this in the throes of a race atmosphere is an excellent test of patience. It was initially tough to not chase down the 10 or so women who flew off the line, but I reminded myself of what I was there to do that day. I felt good during my MP mileage (and came in a little hotter than necessary for some), and during the climbing around mile four through the preserve, I felt really strong and passed many runners. Once I finally finished the first 5 mile bit of my workout, I quickly transitioned into the HM portion and came in HOT, thanks to the surge of adrenaline, the opportunity to pass a lot of other women who had been in front of me for a while, and with the boost of a slight downhill right off the bat. It was fun to keep changing gears — going from running at HMRP for a few minutes and then slowing it down to recover — and the fun was sometimes compounded by whatever the topography was at the moment. Running fast is obviously a lot harder on steep uphills than it is on downhills, and similarly, it’s hard to recover when you’ve got a looming descent calling your name. Again: patience. Heed the plan. Trust. Trust. Trust.

Somewhere in the second five mile portion of my workout, the skies completely opened up out of seemingly nowhere and just rained buckets on us. It was so humid earlier that the downpour felt pretty nice, but man, that came out of nowhere! WTH, Midwest?! I was so impressed with all the AS volunteers just taking in the rain — most of whom didn’t have any raincoats or ponchos — because while it felt great while running in it, I think it would have been kinda cold to stand around in. I thanked every volunteer and police I saw because it can be boring to stand around waiting for runners to come through, and in shitty weather, it can be positively miserable. They did us all such a huge solid.

While that first big hill at mile four, through the forest preserve, was definitely a challenge, I thought the second big one was actually a lot more manageable, perhaps because it was on roads and not on trails. The good and bad thing about running somewhere unfamiliar is that you have no idea where you’re going — particularly if your internal GPS is a bit unreliable, ahem — and even with the supposed “big hills” behind us, and the bulk of my workout done, that last 5k of any half can be positively brutal. By mile 10, I had taken two or three SiS gels — one at zero, right before the start; then one again around mile 5-6; then one more around 8-9, I think — and I think it was after mile ten that the meteorological gods again showed up to party and dumped more buckets on us. Cool.

I hadn’t seen a woman in front of me for a while, and I hadn’t heard any immediately behind me, either, but I was clinging to hope that I may be able to finish high in the women’s field, provided I didn’t totally tank on the final 5k. Of course, we had more rollers right up until the very end, and around mile 11, we landed in front of our starting area at Lake Metroparks and passed through the starting area to run in the park behind where we began. In doing so, our last couple miles were on the farm property and through some just beautiful tree canopy again and close enough to the finish line that we could hear it before we could see it.

 

I was feeling pretty tired toward the end, and by mile 12, I felt like I was tanking fast. Naturally, out of nowhere, a young girl, probably high school-aged, showed up and passed me, running scared and looking behind herself periodically to see how far back I was. I tried to stay with her and catch her but didn’t succeed, cursing myself for not taking that last SiS I had in my pocket earlier. I had no idea if she were a relay runner or a HM, but I tried to close the gap as much as I could over what felt like an endless mile through a field before one last tiny incline and then a downhill finish.

It wasn’t until somewhere late in the race that I flipped my watch screen over to see my time and saw that I’d probably come in right around 1:40, +/- a few minutes, which is typically my HM split during a marathon. Once I realized this, I tried to finish as close to 1:40 as possible and juuuuuuuust missed it — 1:40:10 — but was satisfied. I had a solid workout and accomplished that which I wanted to, for the most part, even if I felt like I had begun to tank with a mile to go, attributable to stupid fueling choices on my part.

I checked the results and learned that I was in the top 25 finishers for the half, and after I ran a few more easy cool-down miles — after getting poured on again (third time, if you’re keeping count) — I came back and learned that I had won the woman’s side! I accepted my award from the RD, a white envelope in which I assumed was a gift certificate to one of the local stores, and it wasn’t until I was beginning to drive away that I checked and realized I earned some cash money for my efforts. How completely unexpected and generous!

Overall, it was a great morning. Not only did I get to race workout against the elements of humidity (which was tough) and pouring-buckets-rain twice mid-run (which was a welcome cut to the aforesaid), but I also did so against the backdrop of a tough course (about 800′ gain) five weeks out from my goal marathon and on untapered legs. You can see how the workout shook out at my Garmin notes, if you want some numbers. 

If you’re ever in the area, I’d definitely recommend this race. It’s affordable, well-organized, logistically very easy, has a challenging but totally doable elevation profile, and offers some nice little amenities like a tech shirt (that my seven year-old loves and wears almost nightly to bed), free race pics, and (this year, anyway) an actual cowbell medal. The weather’s a gamble — late June in Ohio, of course it’s going to be — so just consider that as one more notch you can earn on your mental toughness belt (or whatever). Doing hard things is fun. This race is a great opportunity for that. 

Five weeks from TSFM!