10 Down

I completed my 10th half marathon yesterday at Cap City.  Had some rough spots along the way, started off too fast (classic mistake), but finished with a really good time.  Although I didn't hit a personal best time (2:04:26) I wasn't far off, finishing in 2:04:46.

Cap City is a pretty organized event, with over 8,000 people running the half marathon and several thousand more running the quarter marathon and 5K runs, they pretty much have to be.  But they seem to be better organized with more room than even the Columbus Marathon, which has been around longer.

I was able to upgrade from my original corrall assignment of corrall E to corrall D.  They planned it out to have a couple thousand runners in each corrall.  Those that aren't familiar with running events this big, the corrall starts are meant to start people based on the time they expect to run.  By starting races this way there is less chance of faster runners getting stuck behind slower runners or slower runners and walkers getting run over by faster runners.  It also helps to keep the field a little more spread out right from the start and allows the runners to settle in to their pace early.

The running community was affected a great deal by the bombing at the finish area of a Boston Marathon a few weeks ago.  At the front of each corral there was an American flag flanked by a City of Boston flag.  The festivities of the day started with the National Anthem and a moment of silence for the victims of the bombing in Boston.

This was the 10th year for the Cap City Half Marathon, and the finishers' medal reflected their anniversary.  With ten Half Marathon and two marathon finisher medals, I've run out of room on my display shelf, so I'm going to have to figure out a different way to display my running medals.  I've got several other medals from 5K's and other runs that I've done, but I only display the half marathon and marathon medals.

Now it's time to start getting ready for Philadelphia.  The Philadelphia Half Marathon isn't until Sept. 15.  Starting May 6 I will start my training schedule.  It's a training schedule for a full marathon.  This training cycle will let me know if I think I'm ready to try and run a full marathon in 2014.  I'll be ok if I never run a full marathon again, but if I can get myself to that level I will try it at least one more time.