Just Finished Gainesville's Five Points of Life Half-Marathon

Nearly a year after my previous half-marathon, I just completed the Five Points of Life Half-Marathon here in Gainesville, running through the entire course and finishing with an official time of 2:07:36.8 (here is a link to the results).  While this was about 17 minutes slower than my last run in Tavares, Florida, I was pleasantly surprised at how fast I did run...considering that over the past eleven and a half months I hadn't run any distance remotely close to 13.1 miles.  One of the factors that helped me in this race was unanticipated.  As the crowd of runners assembled before the starting line waiting to begin the race, I noticed certain runners were holding poles with signs on them...signs showing finishing times, like 2:00 and 2:15.  Pacers.  Then it hit me: all I needed to do was to stay close to the 2:15 pacer for most of the race, and then toward the end run faster to the finish line if I felt up to it.  And that's exactly how it played out with me running a 2:15 pace until there were about 3.6 miles to go ...and then I tore off down the road. 

One idea that I cultivated which helped me to go ahead and enter this race was that I could stop along the way and walk some distances to help me cover the course.  It turned out, though, that I had plenty of energy to complete it running...and I finished strong.  The only difficulty I had was toward the end when my lower legs and feet were aching pretty badly.  And soon after the race I experienced some leg cramping, a common occurrence for me. 

The temperature at the start of the race was about 39 degrees and it was dry and clear.  It heated up to around 50 by the end, so the weather was very cooperative with us runners today.  Once again, when I looked around me I saw a lot of extremely healthy and very happy people who were totally digging this event.  The organizers did a great job, as well as the police who blocked off the roads and protected us from renegade vehicles.  I like this particular race because it runs though the heart of Gainesville and the University of Florida campus.  This year was different to me than the last time I ran this event in 2010 in that there were many more spectators and well-wishers lined up along the street this time to cheer us on. 

Now comes the post-race recovery period and the accompanying aches and pains...