Originally the plan was to make this a fun weekend at Hershey, but other commitments for the family came up and decided to make drive up myself from Chambersburg saving the hotel expense since it was just me. Only thing with that plan I forgot to cancel hotel in time. So at last minute decided to drive up to Hershey night before after a exhausting kid activities day running me ragged. Settled in hotel around 9pm Saturday night, layed out the race gear so it was ready to go race morning.
Every race I double check alarm clock to make sure it's set. That really does not matter though as I am always up before alarm goes off. Got dressed and had my oatmeal and headed out to Hershey Stadium around 5:45am ensuring I had plenty of time to get my registration packet and be ready to go before start. Picked up my packet and pinned my bib on and hit restroom again. Nice to use actual restroom opposed to port-a-potty since race started at stadium at Hersheypark.
Scoped out the the last 0.1 of course inside stadium trying to visualize how that would go in just mere hours. Met up with my friend Heather who was also running race. She ran it last year and talked about how the course differed in the inaugural year. Wished her good luck and made my way to starting area hitting restroom one last time and stretching to loosen up a bit. Met up with my friend Steve and talked about race as we waited for it to start.
Race was about to begin and lined up in the 6,7,8 minute corral toward the middle. I had a good base building and training cycle this past summer/fall and felt good about a PR with a goal of 1:37 and at least a good shot of something below that with decent weather in low 50s and sunny on race morning.
Race Director made a few announcements and turned it over to Zowie who is a patient at Hershey Medical Center with the Children's Miracle Network where proceeds from race go to. More on Zowie later. She officially started race and I was off running in my 4th half marathon.
Mile 1 - 3 - For a race the size Hershey was it was not too crowded as I started running. Plan was to keep it to a 7:30-7:40 pace to start off as we made our way thru park which had some tight spots for this beginning stretch. As I got out of park and to open road splits were at 7:23, 7:23, and 7:32. More fast than I would have liked for first 2 miles, but was right on pace for my goal time.
Mile 4 - 6 - Feeling pretty good at this point even with starting to see some hills, but powered up at a good pace. Splits right on target with a 7:26, 7:29, and 7:27.
Mile 7 - 9 - Hit halfway point at exactly 49:00 and was very hopeful for a 1:37, but this was point in race where hills went a little harder and longer than I am used even in hilly Chambersburg. Hill at around Mile 8 or so really took a lot out of me and think with temps rising ever so slightly was the turning point here in the race. Splits slipped a bit with a 7:46 and 7:48 in Miles 7 & 8. It was about Mile 9 where I felt like I needed to make a decision if 1:37 was going to happen or I needed to readjust my goal. My split for Mile 9 was ugly with the hills just eating me up at 8:20. At this point I felt like throwing in the towel and wanted to walk, but found some inner strength inside me that I was not going to give up and push thru. I did decide that today would not be the day for a 1:37 and decided that a PR was still attainable if I could keep splits around 7:50-8:10.
Mile 10 - 12 - Running with everything I had left and splits really showed the hills had worn me down. Splits of 8:10, 8:12, and 8:06. I was running more on inner strength at this point than physical.
Mile 13.1 - Gave it all I had left as we got closer to Hershey Stadium running thru the tram paths and parking lot to stadium. Mile 13 split of 8:20 and knew a PR was not happening as I entered stadium for last .1. Seeing the crowd at stadium gave me a little extra and felt like I was in the Olympics or something heading towards the finish. Threw down the hammer for the last stretch finishing at 1:41:56. There again at the finish was Zowie who put the medal over my head. By far the best part of the race.
299 out of 3956 Total Runners
AG 35-44 - 87 out of 493
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