Somewhere, I read that the dates binary equivalent is 42. Most sci-fi fans also know that 42 is the answer to life,the universe and everything. Apparently, the question remains a little ambiguous. Yesterday found me running the Towpath Half-Marathon in Peninsula, Ohio. It was my first time at the event. The weather was a cool 66 degrees at the start. Due to some navigational errors (apologies to my co-pilot) we got to the starting line just prior to start. I normally don't mind starting from the back of the pack and working my way forward, but in this case because the trails were so narrow it was hard to pass at times. Kinda wish I would have pushed more to the front prior to the start. We started off down the drive from Brandywine Ski Resort and made our way onto Brandywine Rd. From there it was about a two mile jaunt past Boston Mills then to the towpath itself. Once I hit the towpath I had decided to settle in to a comfortable pace. This turned out to be faster than I had thought. Through training, and especially the last two weeks, I had dealt with a sinus infection that had interrupted some of the key runs that I had scheduled. I was anticipating a pace of 8:30 to 8:45, I was shocked to see that I was clipping along comfortably at 8:15. I kept this pace through the turnaround at mile 8. At this point in the run the marathoners had made their way onto to the towpath. This restricted us to running single file for the most part, or passing on the precarious right muddy shoulder. There were a couple of runners that I seemed to be playing "leapfrog" with as I would pass them then they would over take me. I think we all had the same strategy in mind to save enough to throttle it up at the end. None of us knowing exactly when to hit the button. I noted that the final mile markers were not very well marked, particularly miles 12 and 13. Due to not being able to gauge the final distance (the harmon was off about .25 of a mile at this point) when I saw the approaching exit point of the towpath I floored it. Pushing everything I had into an all out sprint. I knew the finish wasn't too far from this point. I didn't realize just how close it was. About 50 ft. She's...I almost crashed into the poor girl handling the medals. I bowed and got my medal. Checked my garmin: 1:48. Awesome. Beat my goal time of 1:50. Checked my official times and was 1:48:17. Placed 170th out of 1084 and 20th in my age group. All in all a good run. A little sore the next day but a couple of Advil seemed to help. Looking forward to getting back to jus running with no training schedule. Although, the Turkey Trot is only a few weeks away. I'm sure a tempo run or two will creep in there. See you out there.
P.S.- I almost forgot it was the WWFoR weekend. Congratulations to all the runners who ran and thanks to the organizers who worked very hard to make it accessible to all.
