This morning I ran the Goodyear Half Marathon/10k, the second race in the Akron Marathon Race Series.  I ran the half last year in its inaugural year, and swore to never run a half in the summer ever again. And here I am. With a blog post about running a half in August. Something is clearly wrong with me lol!

Anywho, I have always felt that the Akron races are the most well-organized and put together races, and today was no exception. Packet pick-up was at the John S Knight Center this year, the same place they hold the expo for the September races. It is always easy to find your way around and get what you need.

Worrisome though was the weather forecast for today. There was a good chance of storms, high temperatures and humidity, even for the 6:30am start time. Watching the weather for several days, they kept going back and forth about whether or not it would storm, and in the end it did hold off. Though I sort of wished it had rained a little, the heat and especially the humidity were unbelievable!

Luckily for the first few miles of the race, it was a cloudy and overcast, so this helped a lot. In fact, my friends who ran the 10k were pretty much able to finish without the blazing sun beating down. But of course I was the fool who chose to do the half, so blazing sun here I come!! I did pretty well for the first 8 miles or so, and then the heat really started to get to me. The misting stations along the course helped, as well as the generous folks who stood in their front yards pointing their hoses to the street for us to run through!

This course is a tough one, very rolling from about mile 5 on. Though reportedly flatter than the September marathon course, I find it to be pretty up and down for most of the route. The course begins and ends at the Goodyear HQ. It travels west toward Goodyear Heights, and then back past Goodyear HQ, past the blimp hanger and into Ellet, eventually coming back around by the blimp hanger and ending just after making a loop around the Goodyear Test Track.

As I mentioned, around mile 8 or so I really started to feel the heat. And since I am still getting over being very sick about a week and a half ago, the “crap” in my throat was not helping matters. I think I mentioned in another post the issue with my vocal cords. I have something called Vocal Cord Dysfunction, which basically means that my vocal cords can spasm and make it feel like my throat is closing up and give me trouble breathing. It can be triggered by exercise, post-nasal drip, and strong emotions, among other things. The first time it happened I thought I was having an asthma attack (and sounded like it too). Today I think the combination of the humidity, the post-nasal drip and the running combined to have a field day on my vocal cords and I was forced to stop and walk many times during those last 5 miles or so. I knew I was going to be slower today than I would have liked simply because of the weather, but when this slowed me even more it made me angry! So much so that I was almost in tears coming into mile 13. My last half mile was fueled on pure rage; I actually kept an 8:35 pace for that last bit, because I was so mad about being so behind the time I wanted to be.

The finish line at the Akron races is always a party. At the end of today’s race there were Eddie’s Cheesesteak and Swenson’s food trucks, as well as a tent with ice cream sandwiches and a beer table. Runners each got 2 food tickets and a beer ticket. Not a beer drinker, I gave that ticket away, but enjoyed every bite of that Swenson’s cheeseburger! It was hard earned; best burger ever!! There was also a band (as there always is at the end of Akron races) and areas to buy merchandise. An added bonus with these races is the finishing chute area, which once again was well laid out and organized. No bunching up of people causing traffic issues as you are trying to get across the finish line. Unique to this race are the cooling towels they hand out at the finish. Whoever came up with this idea is a genius!

I went into this race trying to have a positive attitude. I’ve been working a lot lately on my mental game, trying to be more focused on the mile I am in, which has definitely helped my runs feel less daunting, and has also helped me maintain the paces my coach has me scheduled for. I need to continue to work on this.

So much of life is mental. Your thinking hugely impacts your emotions and actions and reactions. I think Henry Ford said it best: “whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.” I finished today’s race in 2:29:03. Not my best effort, I was hoping to come closer to my PR of 2:17:46, but as my friend reminded me, it’s certainly nothing to shake a stick at! I finished this race last year in 2:35:30, so at least I can say I beat my course time by 6 ½ minutes. And hopefully all this training in the humidity will help set me up for a kick ass race in the fall!!