Hamilton County

While I eagerly await my first official race of this project, I am going to write some memories of previous races in the eight counties I'e already run in.

I live in Hamilton County, so it has to be first up. My intention as I go forward is to learn a little bit about each county and write a little bit about it here, and I almost forgot that i should really do this for the counties where I've already run, too. I basically almost forgot about Hamilton County. I never really think about Hamilton County.

So I Googled it, and if you don't want to bother reading the Wikipedia entry, here are some basics: we are in the Southwest corner of Ohio. Cincinnati, where I live, is the county seat. The county was settled in 1788, and the Shawnee was the Indian tribe that was pushed out so we could all move in. Today the county is majority white and middle class, but maybe 25 percent black. We have traditionally leaned Republican but in recent years that has been shifting, and in the last three Presidential elections we went for the Democrat. Yes, twice for Obama and then for Hillary. We are considered one of the most influential, bellwether counties in the nation in Presidential elections, and it is not uncommon for candidates to visit within a few miles of my home, or even closer. Obama came to the park that is next to my house in 2008, and I walked up the hill with my daughter to see him.

So today, we have a Democratic urban core surrounded by very Republican suburbs. We are still one of the most conservative regions in the Midwest.

Geographically, we are in the Ohio River Valley, a region of gentle hills. Although I do not think of the hills in my neighborhood as especially gentle!

The Wikipedia entry does not mention anything about our industry. Cincinnati started with pork processing, and now we are known for Procter & Gamble and GE Aircraft Engines, I suppose. North of the city used to be farmland but now we have the aforementioned suburbs, miles and miles of bedroom communities and shopping plazas.

Running-wise, we are pretty blessed. We have several very competent race directors, and on any given weekend for much of the year you have a variety of events to choose from. For the past twenty years, this has included the Flying Pig Marathon in early May, which has grown to include a full weekend of shorter races and fun runs.

Our races are downtown, in local parks and on hiking trails, through neighborhoods both urban and suburban, in industrial parks, and even in a cemetery.

Bob Roncker's Running Spot was one of the first specialty running shoe stores in the country at the dawn of the first running boom, and it is still in business today under the Jack Rabbit banner. The Running Spot has been joined by a couple of Fleet Feets and a few other local chains and small stores. So I'm always kind of amazed when I travel somewhere that has just one, or even no, specialty running shoe stores. Kind of spoiled that way. Honestly it's a pretty great place to be a runner.

So I guess that's why I've lived here for over thirty years now. It has pretty much everything I personally need in a place to call. home. The only thing I miss from my youth in NJ is the ocean, and it wasn't like I went there everyday anyway.

My First Two Races

I used to write little (or not so little) "race reports" and post them on the chat group I used to belong to, but I don't actually even have records of my two earliest races, which I completed in my early thirties, in the beginning of the 1990s, not too long after i got into running.

The two first ones, and I don't fully recall right now which came first, were a 2-mile Valentine's Day race that used to happen in downtown Cincinnati, and a 5k cross country race in a local park that was a corporate challenge team event.

I'd have to go look at my running logs to see all the details of these races and I'm wondering if I was really keeping a detailed log back then.

Valentine's Labor of Love

The Valentine's Day race started and finished at a bar that has since been torn down, but back in the day it was a popular watering hole for young people. You were supposed to sign up in pairs and they took your combined times and had awards for fastest couple, actually married couple, senior couple, things like that. Tommy joined me. We were in no way competitive. The race was organized by our local runner's club. The course was fairly flat down by the river. I think I was overdressed. It was back in the day when they still handed out popsicle sticks for placement, or maybe it was the little pieces of cardboard and you had to write your time and age group on it and drop it in a box. And that's about all I remember.

The Corporate Challenge

The Corporate Challenge stands out a little more vividly. I think it was in the spring, and I was on a team for the mid-sized company that I worked for. The event was a benefit for the American Diabetes Association, which I felt some affinity for since my dad was diabetic. The race was held in Sharon Woods Park. They had separate heats, I seem to recall, for men and women, and maybe for seniors, too. I ran as hard as I could. I remember running across a parking lot at the end of the first mile, and an uphill section through the woods in the middle. I found the terrain challenging, especially the grassy field at the end when I was tired. I almost threw up at the finish, something that still happens when I really give it my all. I felt like I was going to die at the end, and then almost immediately was ready to enter another race as soon as possible. My finish time was 25:45, which would remain my PR for several years afterward. I think my team placed third among the mid-sized companies.

And I guess that will do it as initial memories of my races in Hamilton County. They were my first two races, after all. I had no idea where it would lead me to at the time. I learned that I really liked these types of events, and that I had a bit of competitive fire, even if I lacked the talent to back it up. But the great thing about running is there is almost always somebody to compete with, even if you are only competing with yourself and your previous efforts. Not to mention the whole Age Group thing, which gives you a new way to measure yourself every five years.