Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame Half Marathon

I arrived at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame around 6:00am for the 7:00am start. Getting there early gave me plenty of time to use the restroom before lines formed, get the lay of the land around the start/finish area, and walk around to take some video.

About 15 to 20 minutes before the start, runners began filtering into the corrals. I chatted with the 1:35 pacer, who would be the fastest pacer on the course. While I felt like I had something faster in me, he gave me a helpful heads-up: a construction detour was adding about two-tenths of a mile to the course, meaning an official clock PR might be tough.

The race started perfectly on time right at 7:00am. Right out of the gate, heading away from the Browns Stadium and Rock Hall area up into the city, we hit an immediate climb on West 3rd Street that spiked my heart rate a bit earlier than I wanted. Once we made a left turn on West Lakeside, things leveled off and my rhythm settled. I realized early on that if I wanted a strong performance, I couldn't just settle into a comfortable cruising pace and wait to push late. I committed to staying aggressive, my watch showing around a 6:45-ish pace and keeping my foot on the gas.

We ran a familiar stretch eastbound on Chester Avenue, just like the Hofbräuhaus Half earlier this month. The turn off of Chester Avenue was a block later than expected and my guess is that it shaved off some of the extra distance that the pacer was talking about before we started. You can see the difference on the map between my route and the official planned course GPX. Anyway, from there, we turned onto Martin Luther King Jr. Drive for a nice, easy downhill. Remembering some advice about taking tangents, I used the full width of the roadway to sight ahead and carve out the straightest lines possible through all the curves.

Coming off MLK Jr Drive, we hit a climb leading into the detour on St. Clair Avenue at mile 9. St. Clair stayed flat for about a mile before we descended back toward Lake Erie and passed mile 10. Approaching Marginal Road is where the 10K runners merged in. At this point, the wind coming off the lake was brutal. It was headed right toward us and it was so strong that I had to take my hat off and carry it so it wouldn't blow away.

Battling that headwind with two miles to go was a tough effort, but I kept pushing through the crowds of merged runners. After crossing the finish line, I was thrilled to find out I placed 3rd in my age group, which was a fantastic surprise. I wasn't expecting that with field of this size, about a thousand runners.

The plaza at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame was really bustling after the race. With the 5K, 10K, and half marathoners finishing together and a crowd of spectators, it had a great festival atmosphere. A live rock band was playing on the main stage, and despite some technical hiccups and delays with the results timing for the awards pickup, I got my commemorative pint glass (my second pint glass award!). The on-course entertainment was fairly sparse with just two bands along the way, but overall, it felt like a small/medium-sized local race punching a bit above its weight.