Myakka River Half Marathon

November 11, 2017
Half Marathon #77

I've wanted to run this half marathon, since it started 3 years ago, but something else was always happening that weekend. Even this weekend, I was signed up to run the Red Ribbon Half in Lakeland. But, I wasn't going to try and "race" it, so, the day before the race, I found out there was a pacer spot open for Myakka, so I took it! I've been wanting to try pacing again. I was set up to co-lead the 2:15 group, which would put my overall pace at 10:14 mins per mile. A bit faster then I had been running my long runs lately, but the weather forecast was looking cooler, so I knew I could do it.

Race morning, I headed out east, to park, then take the shuttle over to the State Park. I arrived just before 6am, checked in, got my bib and pacer pole, then hung out, waiting for the rest of the group to show up. Quite a few pacers where coming up from Cape Coral. They arrived around 20 minutes before race start! We got a group photo, then headed over to the starting area. The guy I was pacing with suggested I hold it the first half, then he would hold the sign the second half. hmm. We met some of the runners who wanted to keep our pace. At 6:45, we were off!

The first mile, it was hard to keep the pace, since we were all getting caught up in the excitement of running the race. Our pace was a little fast. I kept trying to slow us down. My other worry was that the many trees would block the GPS signal on my watch, so I kept asking my co-pacer, what his watch was showing. Just after mile 1, I asked him if we could switch up every mile, instead of the way he suggested doing it. I'll admit, I was a little put off by him for a bit. He was talking about himself a lot and telling everyone around us that this was his easy pace. As this was probably a struggle for some of them and a goal pace, I didn't think it was cool of him to keep saying that. We had a boy, 14, who was running with us. It was his first half. He was very excited. He kept saying how this was "the best day!" and then counting off the time and letting us know how much time we had left to run. I talked to him many times, to make sure he was fine, specially as we started to add on the miles. He didn't take water at the fist stop, concerned that it would make him go to the bathroom. He didn't have any nutrition or take any of the Honey Stinger gels, that were being handed out on the course. I was a little concerned for him. He said he had trained that way, so I had to just have faith that he knew what he was doing. He had a couch at school, so I hoped he had gotten some good training advice from that couch. He did fall back around mile 7.

The course is beautiful. Large lakes, with gators and many birds. Large oak trees, with branches out over the road, providing shade. There was one big grassy area, off to the left, were we saw a family of deer. My co-pacer handed me the pole and said he would meet us at the water table up ahead. He needed the porta-potty. As we watched him sprint away, we also saw a deer off to the left, start a sprint across the grassy area, curving towards the road and right towards the co-pacer! We yelled out to him to "watch out" We saw him stop short, raising his arms in the air, as the deer cut across the road right in front of him! It was crazy!

By mile 11, we were down to just a couple of runners with us. We would pass others, encouraging them to join us. Some of them would, or they would try to stay ahead of us, to keep to their goal. As we hit mile 13, we had no one with us! We slowed down, since we were about 30 seconds ahead of the 2:15 pace. As we ran toward the finish line, a woman who had been trying to keep with us, caught up, so we both encouraged he to push through, she could still finish in under 2:15. She did! And we came in just after her, with a time of 2:14:58. Pretty darn perfect!

I had a great time out there. I loved talking to the other runners and providing encouragement to them. I look forward to pacing again next year. :)

With Gina and Wendy after the race.