The United States Air Force in Dayton Ohio held the 13th annual Marathon weekend September 19, 2009.
This was the first time I ever ran the race. I debated for awhile whether to run in this race or the Fort For Fitness the following weekend. Dayton appeared to be a fairly flat course and I was unsure about the Fort4Fitness course. The other reason was they had pace teams for the half marathon that you could join. Since my goal was to try and get under two hours I elected to try Dayton and go with a pace team. Main reason I wanted under a two hour time was to try and get a better starting position in an upcoming race.
At the start I was pretty fresh, and ready to roll and hung with the 9:10 pace for about 4.5 miles, then I gave out. It was just a little to ambitious I guess.
It didn’t take to long to discover that I wasn’t ready to maintain this pace for the distance. Dropped down the pace a bit, but it was to late, the legs had already gone south. I kept hobbling on to the end, but not all that happy with the time. Out of the three half’s I have run this was the slowest.
Still, it was fun. A night at the top of the line Super 8 hotel only about two miles from the race. My photographer learned how to use the “continuous” mode on the camera so got a good series of the finish line, including the good shot with the finishing time showing.
They gave out a really nice finishers medal, some day going to have to do something with them other than toss them into the shoe box.
Some stats for the race:
a) 13.1 Miles
b) finished 2132 out of 3839 overall
c) finished 61 out of 114 in my age group.
d) finished 1347 out of 1930 men.
e) had a 10:26 pace, 2:16:29 total. (Definitely not a PR.)
f) You can see the full details on the running stats web page.
h) had a great time – which is always the goal right?… Right!
You can view all the photos if you are tired of watching the grass grow.
Until the Sky’s of blue are no more,
George