The short of it: 10K (6.2 miles) in 56:53, 6th in my age group, 49th overall.
I was really worried... I woke up with a runny nose and a scratchy throat. Eight weeks of training about to be foiled by a simple cold. And most cold medicine gives me mild stomach upset, tolerable on a normal day but not while running. So I took some allergy meds and crossed my fingers. By the time I got to Hocking Hills I was feeling great. Phew!
Driving in I got a sense of what I was in for, the single lane roads were windy, curvy and hilly, the kind of terrain I really miss from living in Maine.
This race was a complex animal -- five different distances, but it was very well organized. The registration area was kind of a zoo with runners doing their pre-race stuff. Another sign of what was about to come: I looked for a place to run my warmup and there was not a single flat stretch of road in sight. To conserve I jogged around the parking lot a few times.
