Oleksak Half Marathon

Today was the Oleksak Half Marathon in Westfield, MA.  13.1 miles through a hilly Westfield/Southwick.  The first 4 miles are pretty much all uphill, with the rest gradually bringing you back down.  Here's a link to the course map on "Map My Run", and you can see the elevation change.

I was using this race as a tune-up for Boston in two weeks, so I decided to pace my friend Kyle.  This was his first half, and he wanted to be below 2:10.  Based upon the training runs that we've had, I suggested a 9:30 pace, which would bring him in at about 2:04:30.  This was our goal.  As long as we could make it through the uphill, and be within a minute of our goal, ther should be no prolem making up the difference on the downhills.

When the race began, we tried to be as conservative as we could.  We hit the first mile in 9:37, right where we wanted.  Through 4 miles we were only 20 seconds behind our goal, and at 5 miles, we were only 3 seconds behind.  Now, as long as we could keep our pace for 8 more miles, we'd be golden.  Mile 6 was mostly downhill, and this gave us the edge that we needed (8:55 mile).  Keeping Kyle going, we finished with a 2:03:59 (official time) and a 2:03:32 on our watches.  We gave up 27 seconds by starting in the back of the field.

Also, a congratulations goes out to Rob & Maureen (two more co-workers) who finished their first half marathons today.

We got our medals!! Well, they're actually wood because of the sponsor being a lumber yard, but that's one of the best things about this race... One of a kind, hand made medals!