Monroe County

At first, I was kind of disappointed with my time in the Hills and Hollows Half Marathon today, but after a little thought, maybe it wasn't so bad.
The Hills and Hollows Half lived up to its name: a lot of hills and running by a lot of hollows. The first four miles were one small hill after another. Then, it was two long downhills followed by five miles or so of flat course. At mile 11, however, began a two mile uphill run to the finish.
I haven't run any distance since April and it showed. I made it to mile 9 ok and toughed it out to mile ten, where I walked at the water stop but ran the whole mile to 11. Between 11 and 12, I walked some and ran a lot. At 12, my time was 1:53:30, which wasn't too bad, all things considered, but I had to walk a lot of the last mile, which was uphill the whole way. I hate walking in a race.
My time wound up 2:06:28. This was my fourth half this year and my times on the previous three were 2:06, 2:01 and 1:59, so I regressed with this race. This week I signed up for next April's Illinois Marathon but I had no gas in my tank when I finished this half, so I am not ready for a full marathon.
On the other hand, there is plenty of time until April and my pace was good, up until I had to walk. Plus, I have plenty of distance races coming up and my time wasn't too far off from earlier this year. So, there are some positives to take away from this race.
This was a good race and challenging. The secenery was pretty and there were water stops at every mile. There were 96 half marathon runners today and 88 runners for the 5k, which the hosts said was the record number for both races in this four year old race.
In all, I am glad I did this race and would recommend it to anyone, although with only 96 runners, the course does get a little lonely in spots.