I ran the Glass City Half Marathon Sunday in Toledo, Ohio.
It was a chilly and windy morning in the Glass City. I decided to run with a coat over my short sleeve shirt, singlet, shorts, compression socks and stocking hat. I did get warm during the half marathon, but not overly warm.
I was hoping that this half marathon would be better then last year. It wasn't. But any day I can run, is a good day.
I started to develop a side stitch around the 3 mile mark. It went away after a while, but it caused me to slow down my pace by almost a minute. I don't know if the side stitch was due to the water I drank the chews I ate on the course. When I run everyday, I always drink water at 2 miles. I rarely have any issues. I don't know the cause, but it happened. Once the side stitch went away, I was able to run a little faster. Then it struck again. This time around mile 6. Another round of side stitches. At the six mile mark, I was behind in time 3 minutes. When the stitch went away again. I passed mile 7 down by 2-3 minutes.
As mile 7 started, the course took us through a park. At one of the aid stations, a lady in front of me was trying to grab Gu. She missed a volunteer and stopped to turn around a grab one. Of course I was right behind her. Since it happened so fast, I just stuck out my arms to push her. She apologized to me, but I did have to put on the brakes for her. Also in the park, we got our first taste of the wind. It wasn't too pleasant. It was a yucky headwind that slowed me down some more. Crossing the 9 and 10 mile marks, I was behind the time by 5 minutes.
The last 3 miles of the course changed from last year to this year. We no longer ran on a straight, flat path on a trail leading us to the back to the University of Toledo. The course made left hand turn back to city streets, more wind and many hills. After crossing the 11 mile mark, a man on the side of the street was yelling that after this hill, it was flat the rest of the way. Running up the hill was tough. It was long and felt like it went on for a while. A bunch of people were walking up the hill. I decided since it was the last hill, or so I thought, I ran up. I kept thinking how cruel it was to throw this big hill at us at the end of the half. Making it up the hill and turning some corners, more hills, but smaller were waiting. My legs were getting tired and the wind was strong. It was doing a great job of slowing me down.
Besides the side stitches, I had another issue. I was stepping into low areas of the street and my right hip started developing pain. After making the step, my hip would start stinging. I did that at least twice. It wasn't too painful, but there was some pain. It did eventually go away as I was running.
According to my watch, I finished the half marathon in 2:06:30. I really wanted to run under two hours this year. I was coming to the race without an injury and last year I battled with a severely strained right hamstring. I even finished faster last year by four minutes. Oh well. I ran another race injury free and any race is a great opportunity. To me running is fun and I'm happy anytime I can do it.
Following the race, I met up with my Oiselle teammate Jen Bigham at the after party. I met Jen in New York before running the Can Lake 50K. Jen finished second overall for females in the half marathon. I was so happy to see her again.
