I finished the Ohio Northern University Indoor Half Marathon on January 26 in 2:22:29. 105.5 laps on a 200m track. Some are put off by multi lap indoor events but I actually enjoyed it. I think this is my 9th such event. Took about 30 minutes or so to find a rhythm, but that came and settled into consistent lap times. With my current level of fitness and where I am in the training cycle, I was totally fine with the time.
After 105 laps, I ran the final lap as hard as I could and was happy to hit the finish line:
The men's winner set a record at 1:24. First female finished the HM in 2:01. The full marathon men's winner went 3:29. In a loop marathon, you really see just how fast the leaders are as they zing by you time and time again.
The event was a fund-raiser for this small D3 school's XC and Track programs and evidently has been quite successful to raise funds for needed equipment. The deal for the team is they have to show up and manually count laps for each runner...a one-to-one connection between counter and runner. Each counter also had to make a poster for his/her runner and they had a contest on who had the best poster. I met my counter, Kameron, before the race. She was delightful. Here we are after the race, with the poster she made which I got to take home. Like anyone else would want it, right???
It also afforded a road trip with my local running buddy, Jon. The conversation there and back again was wonderful. Really appreciate this guy...good friends matter.
In addition to the HM, I did more running before and after the race just because I need the miles. Got a total of 16.2 miles done on the day and that felt good. And I just plain never get tired of Race Day, in whatever form it comes.
Persevere. Even when you go in circles.
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