Tag: Akron Marathon Half

Akron Half Marathon Recap – Exhilarating, Challenging and Hot

October 7, 2017 / chrisbrown330 / 4 Comments

Finishing 13.1 miles on a hot September Day! The thrill of a long term goal achievement!

The Akron Half Marathon started out chilly at 60 degrees when we got into town and parked the car before the roads shut down at 6 am. It felt like dark thirty… but my stomach and head were WIDE AWAKE with excitement and anticipation.

Jill and I were ready in the corral long before the 7 am start. We did the 6:30 am photo with our online running group and visited the porta-potty well in advance of the Star Spangled Banner. Corral D was a buzz of nervous, excited runners, filled with Team Relay runners and Half Marathoners. I didn’t see a lot of marathon bibs, but then again I was focusing on my mantra for the early part… run your own race.

Jill and I separated as soon as the crowd started up. I crossed the start line at 7:10:06.

I felt chilly. It was still dark and we shuffled along.

Start Slow to Finish Fast

I took the first mile very slowly since during our practice I was out like a rabbit and did the exact opposite of what you’re supposed to do. However I may have overdone it since it was downhill. In retrospect, I probably went a bit too slow.

When Jill and I practiced on Aug 26 I ran something like a 12:16 mile… did the exact opposite for the real thing. Yeah. Maybe even over did it. My first mile according to my Strava was 15:20 (but maybe I started the clock a bit too soon, definitely before crossing the start matte, and we walked in the crowd.)

The second mile was closer to actual at 14:03… and every mile after that was faster than those two. At the 2nd mile I saw my friends coming early in the morning to cheer me on. Wow, was that a shot in the arm. We doubled back in this area and I saw them again at mile 5. I had to keep reminding myself “start slow to finish fast.”

It wasn’t until mile 9 or so that I started thinking about my mantra the last half of the race was “Negative splits. Negative splits.”
I heard that in my mind every step

Fitbit shows the Splits

Fitbit shows my last mile is the fastest mile. Yeah! Negative Splits!

Below is a different tracker called Strava. Same race!

Funny how Strava has different times all together, all a little longer. the minus and plus numbers are the feet up or down for climbing or dropping.

On the chart below there are more comparisons of my run by first and last section, pace and number of people passed.

I like that I passed 160 people during the last half of the race (and only 4 people passed me!) This is where the first two miles at an incredibly slow pace while I was fresh really helped!

Food is Fuel

Trying to figure out food to keep you moving for three hours in the heat is a tricky thing. Blood sugar, heart rate, pace and the heat all effect it. I kept track of what I ate and drank. I think I did it right, but it was a hot one! (Several people went to the hospital for overheating, even those doing the half.) Below is my running plan of food and drink compared to the actual food/drink/and cooling scarf! You can see I never really ran that planned pace until the last bit of the half.

Standing in the finishers area for the party was really tough in the heat. I was a bit confused and not functioning at 100%. My feet hurt from pounding the pavement in the hear. Later when I got into the shade I felt a bit more normal.

The bottoms of my feet were hurting. I didn’t expect that. I think because of the heat and the mileage. We took a quick sit down in the grass, just to get off our feet, but not for long!

As I recall, I drank Powerade and water at every water station. Plus — even though they always say “NOTHING NEW ON RACE DAY” — I bought a handheld insulated Nathan water bottle at the expo the day before and WOW, am I glad I did! (Thanks for the advice, Jill!!) I filled it with water the night before, put it in the freezer overnight and actually had ice water for the first half of the race. Temperatures got into the 80’s and I think it was 78 degrees about the time I finished.

I finished the half with 2:56:53 and a 13:31 pace. Under 3 hours, which was my goal! I’ll definitely run a half again!

Ringing the PR bell for our Personal Records! Woo Hoo!

Will I do it again?!? You bet. I’m going to see if I can get to 2:30 ish for my next race. Or at least that’s what I’m thinking now. More cross training. Better fuel management. Have the same amount of fun each time and I may be doing half marathons for a very long time – God willing!

Five Ways to Improve on the Half Marathon

October 6, 2017 / Jill McCauslin / 0 Comments

My last post covered our running of the half marathon in the Akron Marathon. I’m still so excited that we did it! Wow, it was fun. I think races might be more fun once they’re over.

We did a lot of things right but now what we’ve run the race, I can see some things I’d do differently or just start to add to my training regime.

What we could improve:

We figured out how we needed to eat and drink when running long distances. We’d both only run shorter distances and so eating and drinking really hadn’t been a problem. Once you start running over an hour, you need to know how you’re going to get water and possibly some food. Once you’re running over two hours, food becomes essential.Chris introduced me to carrying orange slices. Wow, they’re like pure energy. You eat an orange slice and that sugar goes right to your blood stream and whamo, you’re energized.During the race, it was hot. A number of people were taken to the hospital for being dehydrated and having electrolytes out of whack. I didn’t drink the PowerAde available a the fluid stations. Chris did—she mixed it with her water to dilute the flavor—and she felt better at the end of the race than I did. I felt light-headed. Fortunately I had a packet of electrolyte stuff that you mix in with your water. I poured it into my water bottle and drank it down. I also ate some food and between all of that, I felt better.I need to do some research on the best way to fuel my body during a race.
Chris and I collapsed on the field.
I know all of the training plans we looked at said you don’t have to run the full distance to train but if I were to do it again, I’d get in a couple more long runs and I’d run the full 13 miles or even go up to 14 or 15. I think psychologically speaking, it would be easier to know that Id already run that distance or that I’d run further.
Personally, I’d like’ to lose about 10 pounds before next year’s running season. It’s a lot easier to run without carrying extra weight. I gained weight this past year—too much eating at restaurants and drinking beer—and now I’d like to lose it.
I’d like to get some more people to run with. I think we need a smallish running club with women around our age. It would be nice to have the ability to contact people and say, “I’m going to run tomorrow and I want to run 5 miles around a 11 to 12 minute mile.”
Now that I have this running base in place, I want to be sure to continue to run over the winter. I’m thinking that we need to register for a race in the spring to keep us motivated.

The end result is that we registered for the half marathon, not knowing if we could do it but believing that we could. We trained like crazy, ran some additional races as part of our training, and then achieved our goal. Wow! I’m still amazed at it.

I guess the big lesson here is that I’m planning on running another race!

Running the Akron Half Marathon

October 6, 2017 / Jill McCauslin / 1 Comment

Woo hoo! We made it! Chris and I ran the half marathon last Saturday in the 2017 Akron Marathon this past weekend. We both ran around the times we had hoped for. Chris finished under three hours (way to go Chris!) and I finished around two hours and 35 minutes.

Chris and I at the Race Expo

I’m so proud of us for achieving this goal. The race was tremendous fun though harder than I was expecting.

Think about a place that is about ten miles from your house. Now, add three more miles to that. That’s how far we ran.

It was hot!!! We knew that the forecast was for a hot day and received multiple cautionary emails from the race organizers. Fortunately the race started at 7:00 AM so it was pleasant enough when we started but it had warmed up into the 80s by the time we finished. The heat drains your strength when running.

Here’s a few thoughts on what we did right and what we could improve. Well, at least I can.

What we did right:

We created a plan early on. The race was at the end of September. We started researching training plans and discussed what we were going to do starting in January. We knew what we had run in the previous year so we weren’t complete newbies but we knew that this was going to require more from us than what we had done in the past. We planned our training and discussed some possible races we wanted to do over the summer.
Chris has a history of some injuries. In particular, her Achilles tendon has caused her problems in the past. She performed lots of stretching and physical therapy exercises to keep her Achilles healthy. We both continued to use weights at the gym so we did our cross training. I think that helps a lot.
We ran races with increasing length over the summer which forced us to train for longer distances. We ran a 5K early on and then bumped up to a 10K in July. We wanted to run a 10 mile race in August but couldn’t find one that worked for us. There aren’t many 10 mile races in the area. So, we planned our own 10 mile run.
We also knew that we wanted to run a local 5K over Labor Day weekend, so only a few weeks before the race. It wasn’t part of our plan, distance wise, so we said, “we’ll run it for speed.”
We stayed in touch on how we were doing. We logged our time on Strava and participated in challenges on Fitbit. As we began to do longer runs, we began to run together more often.
We thought about shoes, clothes, and supplies. Chris replaced her shoes late in the summer but made sure to do so in time to break them in before the race. I showed her the water belt I had received last Christmas.
We did our research. We talked to runners and trainers. We read websites. We listened to running podcasts. We shared what we learned with each other. This doesn’t help you actually run but it gave us good ideas on how to train and to think about timing and recovery.

So, we spent a long time preparing for this race and we did it. It’s really amazing to me. When I start thinking about how long 13 miles is, I’m amazed. My next post will be what I want to do differently going forwards.

Chris and I waiting for the start of the race.