Ran the 2019 Tom Walker Memorial Half-Marathon This Morning

I had been determined to run in a half-marathon race sometime in 2019, but I had missed some opportunities at the beginning of the year (and really wasn't in good enough shape anyway) and knew that this Tom Walker Memorial Half-Marathon, which I had run a couple of times a few years ago, would be available for me come November.  It's very conveniently held here in Gainesville with Boulware Springs Park off SE 15th Street as the base for operations and is organized by the Florida Track Club.  You park your car, cross the small park to the back...and there is the Hawthorne Trail stretching off in both directions.  The entire half-marathon takes place on this very popular rails-to-trails project, a there-and-back course with the midpoint turnaround just before you get to the County Road 234 crossing...so there's no actual motorized traffic to contend with, although the bicycle traffic can be a major nuisance on the trail with their darting in and out among the runners...

I got there early this morning in order to register...I'm not a fan of paying in advance for races when I can avoid it.  The temperature was a perfect 46 degrees, a little chilly at the race's start but warming up to the 60s by the end, with relatively low humidity.  In recent years the event's organizers added a 5K race to coincide with the half-marathon...much of the crowd was there for this shorter race.  Upon reaching the trail before the start at 8:00, I made my way to the back of the racing throng, knowing in advance that I wouldn't be setting any speed records today.  My strategy was clear: go out slow, run slow, keep running slow, and finish slow...with the main word in this sentence being "finish".  As a matter of fact, at the race's start I was running so slow that I was going barely faster than a gentleman clearly several years older than me who was walking the race. I also was prepared to take periodic walking breaks as I do during my training runs, but although I noticed many other participants employing this run/walk method to get through the race I felt comfortable just running it on through from beginning to end.  My finishing time was 2 hours 35 minutes and 20 seconds...easily the slowest finishing time of the twelve half-marathons I've run since 2010.  But I hadn't run one since February of 2018 and that race was marked by severe leg cramps near its end while in 2017's half marathon I suffered deep coughing attacks...neither of these happened today.  And unlike my 13.3 mile training run three weeks ago, I never ran into a "wall" and kept a high energy level throughout it all.  So no, I didn't run a very fast race, but finishing it well gives me hope at age 63 for future races...and a possible venture into longer distances...

Here's a link to the race results: [Start 2 Finish Race Management]...