Damn, that was painful. Never, ever run a half-marathon in 100 degree weather with 100 percent humidity thrown in for good measure. It’s lethal. Having said that, I guess I felt “less bad” than many of the 700 other people who ran the 2nd ChAD Outrun The Sun half-marathon in Hanover, New Hampshire. Maybe it was because it was my birthday (37, if you must know), or maybe because I was in fairly good shape from a hard season of biking (in preparation for the Green Mountain Stage Race in, well, the Green Mountains).
1:45:21 was not a particulary stellar time — I ran 1:45:47 in 2006 at the Covered Bridges, the first half-marathon I ever ran, and I felt great at the end of that one. But the 1:45 in ’06 was only enough for a position around 400, the 1:45 in ’07 got me in 43rd place. My timing sucked — two minutes after crossing the finish line, the thunderstorm broke and drenched the remaining 650 or so runners on the track with some cooling rain. Of course, the ligthing and wind almost shut the whole thing down. All together a pretty rough ride.
Some amazing moments: passing Jill Kearney, my “boss” on the Norwich Rec Board, who is a phenomenal runner and just an all-round kick-ass athlete — she couldn’t deal with the heat, she later told me. Then I caught up to Tom Hulleberg, a good friend and a really stellar trail runner with an iron discipline… he was running in the relay with his kids, so catching him didn’t really count, but still… and then, finally, on the last half mile, I caught up to my good friend Michael Horvath, ex rower, ex iron man competitor and seriously fit. Never thought I’d see the day. He was hurting at least as bad as I. Right before that, at the bottom of the Occum Pond loop, I also had the good fortune of catching my biking buddy Dave Muller cheering on the sidelines — that was a boost I needed really, really badly.
Not sure I’ll sign up for this thing again — but I’d like to see what kind of time I could pull off on a day with some decent weather.
