Ooey Gooey. Indecisive Dan's gloved fingers are sticking together. The gel that he'd been holding had unexpectedly opened, and now it's a mess. Not to waste valuable gel - you guessed it - Indecisive Dan licks some off the gloves before wiping the rest on his shorts. Now he's even more of a mess.
Why is this incident significant, you ask? It probably isn't, but it does mark the time and place (about mile 8.5) when Indecisive Dan realizes that he may not achieve his 'A' goal of sub-1:50 at today's Towpath Half-Marathon. And why, you also ask, is Dan being referred to as 'Indecisive Dan?' Because even though he'd registered for this race, he had almost skipped it, nearly opting instead for a group run with friends in Medina. Yesterday, he changed his mind for the last time, and drove to Cleveland to pick up his bib and shirt. Sorry, Medina friends.
Dan doesn't usually over-dress for races, but he did for this one. Early morning temperatures were in the low 30s, but as the sun rose, it warmed up quickly. The race takes place in the Ohio & Erie Canal Reservation, starting in Cuyahoga Heights. After the first screaming downhill mile, the course takes runners onto the towpath, which is entirely paved here in the North. It's not entirely flat, either; there are some hills, including two high foot-bridges. But what a beautiful Spring morning!
Dan abides. He didn't consider himself in very good shape (to the point that he almost didn't start), so he had only been hoping to break two hours today. Dan's stated goal for the year is to break one hour and fifty minutes in a half. That hasn't happened in a while, and it wouldn't, he reckoned, happen today. Until, that is, that he determined that he was running quite well; faster than expected.
How fast, you ask? It's hard to tell. The race mile markers are off, and Dan's Garmin watch is slightly haywire as well, possibly because of the woody, windy valley course. Let's just say that he hit halfway between 55 and 56 minutes. That's on the order of around 8:30 per mile.
Now, at mile 8.5, runners get to the Rockside Road aid station and turn back towards the finish line. Dan takes his time to ingest a gel, but he had grabbed a couple of others. One went into his pocket, but the other is now all over the darn place. Dan slows some more to get himself back together. The episode most likely doesn't cost Dan all that much time, but he now understands something that he should have done earlier: that he ain't gonna do a 1:49 or better today.
Dan tries to pick up the pace, but the two footbridges, traversed for the second time, slow him down some more. The final two and a half miles are flatter. He hits mile ten with a time of about 1:26, and then runs the final 5K in about 26 minutes. He crosses the finish line in 1:52. He wins his age group, and the award, a photo print of Cleveland from the Cuyahoga River, is pretty cool.
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