"Did you hear about the controversy regarding the Cleveland Marathon," asks Debbie? She is watching the local news, and they've been talking about the 60+ turns at this year's Cleveland Marathon. I hadn't heard, but I had indeed noticed from the course map that there was a bunch.
The start at the south end of Public Square was pretty nice, and despite all the turns in the first half, I manage to go past 13.1 miles in 2:02. That's better than expected, I think. I've done times like this for half a thon, then gone on to break four hours I think. Was that possible today? Nah.
The second half is entirely on the West Side. We're running by a bunch of Cleveland landmarks, and that's pretty cool. The weather's nice too. There are plenty more turns. I keep thinking about the opportunities to cheat. Not that I, personally, would consider such a thing. But others would. In fact, I saw a couple guys cutting the course early on. There were timing mats to prevent such shenanigans, but not nearly enough of them.
My own lack of fitness catches up with me in the second half. At some point, I mostly just try to keep the mile spits under ten minutes. In this endeavor, I'm successful some of the time.
My finish time is 4:12. I learn that I'm second in my ever more ancient age group. I'd hoped for better (in both time and place) but I suppose this is the best I could hope for on this day of turns and decent temperatures.
I just looked at the course map in detail and counted 76 turns. That's three per mile. But who's complaining?
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