Ran the Tom Walker Memorial Half-Marathon Yesterday Morning

Yesterday morning I ran my fourth Tom Walker Half-Marathon race here in Gainesville, and weatherwise it was easily the worst by far.  There's a reason that long-distance races just aren't offered across Florida during the late-spring-to-early-fall months: the heat combines with the high humidity to produce a very difficult running environment as it tends to interfere with the body's capacity to perspire effectively, commonly resulting in overheating.  Although I signed up to run this event during the last week in October, it wasn't until a few days later that I found out the temperature and humidity would be the worst, in the 70s and 90s respectively...ugh, this just isn't supposed to happen in November!  To further aggravate the situation, the clock was moved back an hour Sunday morning, meaning that the sun would be that much further above the horizon at the 8:00 race time. Still, I gamely got up early yesterday morning and made my way down to Boulware Springs Park, in southeastern Gainesville, where it hooks up with the racecourse, the Hawthorne Trail.  I pre-hydrated and carb-loaded on Saturday but knew this run of 13.1 miles over a lot of sloping trail would be a challenge.  The Florida Track Club, which organized this race, provided pacers, with the slowest one going at a 2-hour 20 minutes finishing time; I thought that was a little too fast for where I was at, but for the first six miles I kept up with the pacer.  Then I had to have a conversation with myself about how I would continue, with the heat/humidity really starting to take a toll on me.  I decided to go Galloway Method for a few miles, running for one or two minutes and then walking for one.  This I did up to about the ten-mile mark, when I decided to simply walk at a brisk pace...this is how I finished the race, in my easily slowest finishing time by far, 3:05:29...yet I won my gender/age group (because I was the only finisher in my gender/age group).  Still, I covered the distance...this was my 14th half-marathon since I began running them in 2010.  In retrospect, I probably should have run from the start at a much slower pace instead of trying to keep up with that pacer...maybe I wouldn't have had to walk as much at the end.  After the race was over, the good people at FTC who were managing the finish line let me sit for a few minutes on one of their chairs...thank you!  It's Sunday afternoon as I write this to be posted early Monday morning, and I feel a lot better but still predictably tired and sore.  I'm going to need to look at how I tackle this distance in any future races...I had actually skipped running the Tom Walker Memorial Half-Marathon in an earlier year just because it was too hot and muggy...which proves that growing older doesn't automatically translate into growing wiser!  Still, am I glad I ran this race under such conditions? Hell yes!  Would I run it the same way again? Hell no! You can read the 2022 results by clicking HERE...