The expo had plenty of vendors and allowed me an opportunity to buy some water bottles that I forgot to pack (not the first time for that trick). A hallmark of Akron is their top notch premium; this year’s version was a Brooks jacket. I thought about asking if I could swap out for a ladies (pink) version to present to my wife – I was later told that the volunteers would have done that to make me happy and I think that’s probably true.
I was a case of nerves before flying to Akron. I’m still not quite sure why I was so anxious. Because of the nerves, I wasn’t too surprised to wake up about 30 minutes earlier than planned (at 4 AM). I used the time to get packed up. I stayed outside of downtown, so I parked about 90 minutes before the race start and just hung out.
They have a single start time for a half marathon, relay marathon, and full marathon. This translates into one thing: lots of people at the start. Fortunately, they also had lots of port-o-johns … but once we started, the crowd was thick. I wasn’t too bothered until it didn’t clear up in the first mile, then I started to get annoyed. I almost ran over a person who stopped for the walk portion of a run-walk program.
Fortunately, I met up with two maniacs from Cleveland, Brian and Kathie. I was planning to run a bit faster but I really enjoyed the conversation, so I was happy to swap war stories. We ran together through about mile 9 when they both stopped for a bathroom break. As a solo runner, I immediately picked up the pace, but still held some back. After the split to discard the half marathoners, the course moved off public roadways onto a crushed gravel, rails to trails path that was just gorgeous.
The course returned to a more ordinary street marathon and included a trip up the driveway of an old money mansion – the Hywet Mansion – one of the founders of Goodyear. The mansion is now a museum and garden. It’s about 3 miles from the finish. I’d been calculating the time in my head and felt like I was on track for a 4 hour finish, but at the mansion, I heard some people talking about finishing at 4 hours and it occurred to me that 4 hours of clock time would put me at a PR because it took more than 3 minutes to get across the start line. I tried to keep a nice even pace and found that I could stay ahead of the people chatting about a 4 hour finish. The course generally has rolling hills and specifically, I had people tell me at least a half dozen times that I was climbing or just finished with the “last hill” – when we re-entered downtown, I knew that I really did see the last hill. I did not enjoy the hill, but was happy that it was the last. I picked up the baseball stadium where we finish and got a bit of an adrenaline boost. I cruised in at just over 4 on the clock – but after shaving off the time it took me to cross the start line, I had a new PR.
As he promised in his email to me when I registered, the Race Director was waiting at the finish to shake my hand. The stadium actually had a lot of people in it. They were listening to a band with the scoreboard showing video of the finish line. A nicely organized food tent hustled us through by giving a bag of food. I headed up to the beer tent for my two Michelob Ultras – not the best beer ever, but pretty tasty after a run. Somewhere between the finish line and the beer line, I figured out that I had hit a PR -- no way you could have rubbed the smile off my face with a brillo pad.
Final thoughts – Akron was an easy airport / car rental / hotel / restaurants … I like the small town feel. This is my favorite non-hometown road race – it’s just a great all around package.
Akron Marathon
Time: 3:56:46
Course: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/50708821
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