you can go home again (and even run there!)

I’ve written a lot about fresh starts (that’s kind of the point of this blog these days) and starting over, and another part of that process has been seeing an old place or experiencing the same old thing in a new and different way. Such as earlier this month, when I played suburban tourist to run the Shamrock Shuffle (after years of spectating it and then running it while a city resident). Making new memories. It's good stuff.

This coming Sunday, I’m going to be doing that again by doing something I’ve never done in my hometown of Toledo, Ohio before – running a 5k. I try to visit Toledo a few times a year, since my parents and 91 year-old grandma still live there. I haven’t lived there since I graduated college in 2003, and a lot of things have changed there since that time, but it still feels like home to me in a lot of ways. So after deciding to go visit in late April, I checked out Running In The USA just to see if there were any races nearby that may be fun. Despite my 2015 running and racing hiatus, my interest in racing has been renewed after a couple of pretty solid races this year, and after running finally started feeling fun and easy for me again.

The race that I found was the Glass City Marathon, a race that is celebrating its 40^th anniversary this year, but that I had never heard of until I started running myself in 2012. It even starts and finishes at the University of Toledo (which I attended), so I have no idea how it was completely off my radar before. I mean I guess it’s probably because I wasn’t a runner, so probably didn’t pay attention to things like that. This is also a race that I’ve never been able to do because of scheduling conflicts. It always falls the same weekend as the Illinois Marathon and Ravenswood Run, both races that I did in my past life. So I think it’s fitting that a hometown race would replace my old neighborhood race on the calendar, and nice that I can go run a race at my own college (rather than someone else's, as was the case with the IL Marathon).

I’ve logged about 100 miles since I started running again at the end of January, which certainly isn’t the kind of mileage I was logging before, but when combined with boxing, strength training and lots of walking, is enough for me to have gotten back into pretty decent running shape very quickly. My last 4 runs have been hovering around (and even under!) the 12:00 pace, even on my hilliest of suburban routes (as a reminder, 12:00 was my normal pace for a long time while I was running before). That’s a pretty significant improvement from my 13:35 pace when I started back in January, which goes to show what happens when you’re consistent (and are losing weight – I’m down almost 20 pounds since then, which can’t be hurting my time).

How's that for some measurable progress?

So all of that said, I’ll be looking for a post-retirement PR (PRPR – yay acronyms!). My time in the Frosty Footrace 5k on 2/28 was 39:51 (average pace 12:39). That was almost 2 months and about 50 miles ago, and that course was hilly and it was really windy that day, so not ideal conditions. The Glass City course is pretty flat, with just one big hill that’s about a 25 foot incline (which is not even as steep as the hill in my own neighborhood), and there’s a downhill at around the 3 mile mark, so I definitely have that going for me. The current forecast is partly cloudy and 40-45 degrees, which is right in my running temperature sweet spot, so I'm feeling good about my chances. I'm still working out a strategy and definitive time goal, but my loose (and hopefully attainable) goal is 36:00.

More than anything though, I'm excited to run the streets of my hometown, and I'm excited to be going into a race feeling good again (which is a nice change from the feelings of dread and anxiety that I've had going into the last couple of races).

Have you raced in your hometown before?