Fifteen years ago this month, I ran my first half-marathon.
Unhappy with my time in that Indianapolis 500 Festival Mini-Marathon, I trained a little harder the next year. I improved my time by about 13 minutes, or roughly one minute per mile.
From my running background to training for the race to the buildup of race day and the aftermath of running 13.1 miles, I had several stories to tell. One was that I had no desire to run an extra 13.1 miles to go for the full marathon.
Over the past four years, thousands of runners and walkers have participated in the Mill Race Marathon, Half-Marathon and 5K. Many of them live or work here in Columbus and train on our city streets, parks and people trails.
Like me with those half-marathons, I’m sure you have plenty of stories to tell. And we’d like to hear them.
It doesn’t matter if you’ve run or are planning to run the full marathon, the half-marathon or the 5K, or even if you’re a volunteer or just a spectator, you might have an idea that could turn into a good story.
For 12 weeks, beginning June 25, we will again devote the back page of our Sunday sports section to marathon-related news, features and tidbits leading up to the Sept. 23 event. Once again, we plan to have male and female diary writers to share their journeys of preparing for this year’s events.
If you have a marathon-related story idea, and you think it’s worth sharing, feel free to send it my way. You can e-mail me at [email protected] or call me at 812-379-5628.
The Fifth Annual Mill Race Marathon promises to be another good one, and we’ll be with you every step of the way.
