So with the completion of the 13.1 miles of the Harrisburg Half Marathon we arrived at the halfway point of our journey to OBX. It seems a little crazy to think of it as the halfway. I am pretty excited about both Kelly and my results. Going up north to race in weather that was about 10 degrees cooler and 10 percent less humidity helped. All and all it was an amazing weekend. A great race and a good mini vacation. Friday nights murder mystery dinner on the riverboat was a really good time and a good reason to get all dressed up
Saturday probably wasn’t a good day for our training… we visited Hershey, Pennsylvania. Now, I’m not the biggest fan of chocolate but they were literally giving it away. We did have a good time in addition to having way more chocolate than is good for any living creature. They have things for kids of all ages. I actually learned a lot, both about how chocolate is made and about the man that made it famous. I never knew that Milton Hershey was such a philanthropist. This world would be a much better place if we had a few more men like him.
Now let’s talk about the race. I can’t even begin to give this event enough credit. The course was along the Susquehanna River in downtown Harrisburg, PA. The course started and finished on City Island, a small island in the middle of the river. The rest of the course was either on multi use trails along the river or on a frontage road near the river. The early fall weather in Pennsylvania was perfect for running. It was 66 degrees with 73% humidity when we started off at 8am on Sunday morning.
I think the cooler weather really helped my performance in this event (note that this is the third time I mention the weather… can you tell I’m from Ohio?). My overall time was 1:46:06 which was a 8:03 minute mile pace. As this was the first Half Marathon I ever raced it was a PR for me. Out of 1,034 participants I placed 167th and 132nd out of 460 males. In my age category I was 29th out of 72. Overall I was very glad in performance. I still wonder if I could have pushed it a little more. The overall winner ran at a 5:30 pace so I don’t think I could have kept up with him.
I would recommend a destination race as a great vacation any day. Our weekend in Harrisburg was relaxing, fun and just happened to include a Half Marathon. There are so many great locations in this country I am hoping to see as we plan many more mini vacations around our future races.