A few months ago, Tammy had suggested that I run the Ohio/Michigan 8K. She told me that it's a really fun race in which you run from Sylvania into whatever the first city over the border is in Michigan and back, followed by live music, food, and beer. In hindsight, I'm surprised that I wasn't immediately sold on the beer alone. I failed to register and didn't give a lot of thought to running it until Facebook status updates about it started appearing at the beginning of this week. Around 11:30 on Wednesday evening, my Facebook page was hijacked by someone who convinced me to run. I knew that online registration was open until midnight, but I was too late. At 12:00AM on the dot, "Registration for this event is closed." Fooey.
So it was: I wasn't shut out of the race, but just needed to pay $30 instead of the $25 I would have paid the day before. Or I could have been responsible and registered when I first learned of the race, in which case I would have only paid $20. For the record, that's still too much to pay to run a race that you won't win, but the Ohio/Michigan 8K ended up being surprisingly worth even the $30 I paid. More on that later.
Anywho, the race wasn't until 7:20PM, so I had all day Thursday to get myself prepared as any good runner would do. I slept in until 6:00AM, ran some errands, did a little yard work, ate a whole bunch of cheese, and sat on the couch a lot. If that's not an ideal pre-evening race routine, I don't know what is.
When I arrived shortly after 6:00, Tammy, who was working at registration, was working on getting a little drunk already. I registered, ran into a couple of folks I know, and dilly-dallied. With all of the time during which I had nothing to do, I considered a warm-up run, but never did it. I was feeling good and figured I'd just crank out whatever I could once the race started. My only goal was to try to hover around 8:00-minute miles. In my last two races I had pace goals. In my last two races I went out much faster than my goal paces. In my last two races I finished slower than I had hoped. In this race I also went out much faster than my goal pace.
After the 80-degree gun start, it didn't take long for me to really feel the run. I was moving too fast off the bat and tried really hard to pull back for the first half-mile during which I was bouncing between 7:03 and 7:20. I was also already pretty hot and there was no shade, nor would there be until a stretch of mile three. Before I was finished with the first mile and realized that I wouldn't be able to consciously slow myself enough, I threw out my plan for those 8:00-minute miles. I didn't make a new goal; I was just going to run.
Mile 1: 7:47
The second mile was not very awesome. It became really boring and the road was laden with bumps and potholes--this indicated to me that we had entered Michigan. The only thing that I have against the state of Michigan is their horrible infrastructure; roads in Michigan are the worst and I can't imagine that anything worse exists in any state in the union. I think I prefer the drive on the dirt roads of Route 66 in Arizona to the drive on I-75 in Michigan. As it turns out, the discomfort of driving on said roads translates equally to running on said roads. At 1.5 miles was our first turn--into a corn field. Okay, that's not so accurate. It was actually a turn onto a road running BETWEEN two corn fields. It was as riveting as it sounds. I could see the first water station in the distance: YES! I wasn't even thirsty, but I was so looking forward to splashing myself for a little relief from the sun.
Mile 2: 8:19
Oh, boy. This is not ideal. More than 30 seconds slower than the first mile?! Oh well, that's what I get for going out too fast. There's not a whole lot to say about the third mile. More corn fields, more of the same, crappy Michigan road. Wait, that should be "roadS" because I could see our second turn approaching. I was getting pretty anxious to get out of the sun, but I had no idea when that were happen. At 2.5 we made the turn and I could see it: SHADE! Glorious, glorious shade was not far ahead of me. It was spotty, but it was pleasant while it lasted. Still, I was bored. I even tried to negotiate with myself to walk for a few seconds, but I resisted the urge because I wasn't in pain and I wasn't tired--I was just being a whiny bitch in my head about the heat and sun. Not worth it to lose time for that.
Mile 3: 8:37
Whatever. Finishing is what's important, right? Right. Mile 4 offered a little more shade and we got back into Ohio, evidenced not by a "Welcome" sign, but by the improvement of road conditions. We ran past some classy spectators sitting in front of a pick-up truck parked in the middle of a yard. A dog barked at us, too. I was finally feeling less like a namby-pamby. That's about all there is to say about that.
Mile 4: 8:47
For the last nine-tenths of a mile, I was a little annoyed again; not due to the heat or sun, nor was I tired or in pain. A woman running with a stroller came up behind me. A number of things about this woman bothered me:
1.) A woman pushing a stroller is trying to pass me. A person. Pushing another person. In a probably 50-pound stroller. I am pathetic.
2.) The child in the stroller, for a half of a mile, insisted that she could see the finish. This was before we even made the final turn. And she repeated it over and over and over. Not only was the constant jabber annoying, but what she was saying was a total tease.
3.) I was pretty sure that the woman was going to ram into my heels. Either pass me with your freaking stroller or fall back.
Maybe a little annoyance from outside of my own head was what I needed for the entire race. Eventually, I had enough and mustered up the energy to pick up my pace to get the woman and her kid out of my ear. I also ended up passing a couple of men ahead of me. That burst carried me from a 9:03 pace to 6:30, which I hit just before crossing the finish.
Mile .98: 8:34
Garmin time was 41:55. Official chip time was 41:58.
Average pace: 8:25
My miles were all over the place, but despite bottoming out at above 9:00-minutes, I still finished only 25 seconds slower per mile than what I had originally and casually set out to do. I also placed fifth in my age division.
Tangent: Although I haven't run a lot of races and have only been doing this running thing for a year, I have some weird race distances in my book (25K, 2.9 miles, 8K).
Anywho, the post-race festivities were top-notch. I killed a bottle of water, had a piece of watermelon (bombest post-race food, hands down), and then sucked down two Miller Lites. Despite my time, I apparently finished ahead of a lot of the runners--there was no beer line when I got mine, but a while later the line was easily 100 people deep. I wasn't very hungry initially, but after listening to music and chit-chatting for a little while, I got a little hungry and waited in the food line for my meal. After 10 minutes of waiting, the line had moved about five feet and I still had a solid 50 to go. I had homemade mac and cheese in the fridge at home, so I dipped. Had I stayed in line, though, I would have had my choice of a pulled barbecue chicken sandwich, a turkey burger, or some other sandwich about which I know nothing other than it had cheese on it.
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| Not a tech tee, but the baddest t-shirt I've seen from a race. |
That $30 registration got me two beers, a meal that I never ate, access to swim in a quarry with a giant water slide (which I also didn't do), live music from a mediocre local cover band, and a sweet t-shirt. I will definitely run the Ohio/Michigan 8K again next year. I just hope that the race director makes the route a little more interesting. Of more importance is offering more than one beer line and expediting service at those concessions for food. I'm not complaining though--I got that all out of my system during the race.
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