I caught up with my running friend, Barb Filutze, at Beach 6 as we were both sprinting -- in the rain -- for the start of the Presque Isle Marathon & Half-Marathon at the Rotary Pavilion on Sunday, and said, "Well, this will be fun..I've never run in the rain for this long." (We were both running the half).

Barb and I -- and many others, apparently, had failed to anticipate the traffic jam that would occur when they blocked off one lane of the park and hundreds of runners and spectators clogged the remaining lane. I ended up parking at the lily pond at 6:51 (race started at 7 a.m.) near the ranger station and sprinting to the start. Luckily, I had picked up my packet on Saturday and already had my bib number pinned on and my chip attached to my shoe lace.

We made it to the start with about 8 seconds to spare. Bang...we were off. No time to think, no time to plan, no time to scope out the competition and see who was there. That's what I get for hanging around home too long that morning and forgetting that sometimes there really are traffic tie-ups in Erie.

It rained lightly, steadily and continuously for the entire race. I've never run in rain for that long before, but it wasn't that bad. It was actually, dare I say, refreshing -- in twisted kind of way. Except for the inevitable soggy feet, it was a heck of a lot better than the hot and humid conditions that plague the Presque Isle Half Marathon every July.

I was, initially, somewhat disappointed with my finish -- I had a 1:51:08 -- more than 3 minutes slower than my July time (1:47:46). But, then, I saw the results and thought -- really, I didn't do that bad. And, if nothing else, I have figured out the pace thing because my splits were almost dead on -- a ran a consistent 8:30 pace.

Perhaps, the finish-line clock has become like a scale to me -- I get too focused on the number and maybe what I need to do is just go by how I feel.

And, Sunday's 1/2 felt good. I didn't struggle, I didn't wear myself out, I didn't think "I cannot handle this for one more minute," and I didn't slow down. (Now, today, the 1/2 feels kinda painful, but...it's supposed to be that way. Those hammies and quads have some healing to do after a long, hard race).

There were 456 finishers in the marathon, 348 in the half and 64 in the 5K. You can see complete results here.
All of the finishers got one of these cool finishers medals that, were, well...not metal. Which is really unique -- just like Presque Isle.

All in all, it was another stellar event pulled off by co-race directors Jan Comi and Mike Vieyra and their legions of loyal volunteers, including half of the Erie Runners Club. I'm not the only one singing Erie's praises -- check out the comments at marathonguide.com (note many of these are from last year's event, as this year's finishers probably haven't had a chance to post yet). If you ran the race, feel free to leave your comments about it!

In other weekend racing action -- the Presque Isle triathlon was held on Saturday morning. I'll report on that & post a few photos tomorrow.