Sam Costa

I ran the 40^th Annual Sam Costa Half Marathon Saturday. It’s the oldest road race in Indiana. Weather was great, cool and overcast, perfect except for a little too much wind. I started out ok. Maybe a little quick, but not too bad. I soon settled into a nice steady pace around 7:13 or so per mile. After passing the 7 mile mark I started to pick up the pace. I was passing people and was feeling pretty good. Then just past the 9 mile mark my left calf suddenly started to cramp up. I stopped for a moment to massage it. This helped a little, but I knew I was in trouble. I started running again, but very tentatively. With every step of my left leg I had to pull my toe up to keep the calf stretched. This is no way to run, but I was somehow able to run the next two miles at 7:30 pace. As I hit mile 12 I realized if my calf didn’t completely disable me I could still squeak out a half marathon PR. Well, I made it to the finish in 1:36:14, a little more than 2 minutes faster than my previous best which was run on this same course in 2007. I think I lost around two minutes to the calf problem so if I can get healthy I can shave some more time off that PR.