I Think I Ran 13.1 Miles

On Saturday, April 12, 2008 I participated in the 2008 Oshkosh Half Marathon. The weather did not cooperated. It was around 34 degrees with 15 mph winds and light snow for the duration of the race. When I crossed the finish line, the gun time was 1 hour, 55 minutes, 30 seconds. I wanted to confirm this time with the official results on the internet. I am not listed anywhere in there. Something must have been wrong with the chip I was wearing. To come up with my "official time" here is what I did.

About seven miles into the race, we were stopped by a train on Murdock near the Piggly Wiggly. I couldn't tell you how long we waited, but it was at least two minutes. Let's be conversative and go with that. Darla, the person that I ran with showed a 30 second difference between the gun time and the chip time. So, if you take off 30 seconds for that, I would say I finished in 1 hour, 53 minutes. Last year, I ran it in 1 hour, 59 minutes so that is a nice improvement.

My parents came up to watch me race, which given the weather was very nice. I ate my jelly belly "energy beans" 30 minutes before the race (like last year). I decided to dress light, figuring that I would eventually warm up. So, I wore shorts, something that very few others decided to do. I warmed up by mile three and shedded my jacket, leaving me with a long-sleeve and short-sleeve T-shirt. If the race were much longer that 13 miles, I probably would have gotten cold.

I paced myself much better this year. Darla and I were shooting for 9:00 per mile and despite the train stop, we did better than that, averaging a little below 9:00 per mile. Finishing now seems past me. I want to beat this year's time next year. Weight training this year seemed to be the X-factor.