The race was held Saturday, September 17 in Winslow, AR. The course is "beautiful" and "challenging" which is race-director-speak for hilly. When I signed up for this race I was confused about the course. It wasn't on the road that I thought. Instead, it includes about 7 miles of dirt road with lots of loose and uneven rock. This course is closer to a trail race, albeit an easy trail, than it is a road race. This is certainly not a good course for a PR.
Once I realized my mistake on the route of the course, I quickly changed my plans. I decided to treat this as a training run and ignore the clock. I decided to hold back a little and save myself for the Wichita Prairie Fire Half Marathon, which I added to my schedule in October.
I have been training very hard this summer towards my full marathons scheduled later this fall and winter. It is difficult to know how you are doing when you are running in the heat of the summer but I am optimistic that I am still improving. I am averaging about 60 miles per week, with 70+ on several occasions.
The weather was very nice, upper 50s throughout the race. There was a little wind and a little misting rain in the air but that was not really a factor. However, the slow and steady rain all day Friday before the race was a factor. It was no friend to the dirt roads or to the runners. The course was simply awful in a few places. It was a sloppy mess.
A total of 126 runners showed up for the half marathon. That is pretty good for an inaugural event in a small town. Many were unprepared for the dirt road course. I overheard several comments about it at the start line as the word spread. I'm not sure anyone was upset, more like surprised and daunted by the unexpected additional challenge. The race organizers did a pretty good job from my perspective. However, next year I think they should hold an awards ceremony after the race and give out some sort of plaque or ribbon or something to the overall and age group winners.
 |
| Photo album |
I decided to run totally by feel. I left my stopwatch in the vehicle and ran without it, which is unusual. I wore my trail shoes, which is also unusual. I had good footing mostly, but my cleats sure did pick up a lot of mud.
I did better than I expected. I finished 4th overall with a time of 1:34:10. I was wrong about the winning time. One guy did break 1:30. Not only did he break 1:30 he broke 1:20 too! He finished in 1:18:51.
