Star City Half Marathon

I'm thinking I may head to the Star City Half Marathon in the morning to help out and also watch the race. I have several friends and training partners running, and it looks like this year's competition might be shaping up for a fairly fast race. George Probst will be back to defend his title and has actually won the past 5 years in a row, including back in 2005 when he and I battled it out until the end. Both of us ran in the 1:11's that year, and that was on the old course, which was crazy hilly as anyone who ever ran it would attest. Among those challenging George will be Tim Sykes. I think Tim ran under 15 min for 5k on the track this past spring and has a slew of other fast times to his credit. Andrew Parkins will be out there as well, and based on what I've seen in training with him this fall, I think he's ready for a nice PR. I had given thought to running the half this year, and now that it's here and I know who all is running I'm really wishing I could be out there mixing it up with those guys. Oh well. For the time being I'll be content to help out the Striders and watch the battle. I feel like I've got a good plan that will lead to some fast times this spring and I've got to stick with it. More on that to come.

As a side note, the half marathon will conclude the 2nd annual VAS Star City Running Series. When I was involved in the organization of the series a couple years ago, I wasn't sure how it would go, but from what I'm seeing and hearing there are a lot of people who are really into it and really enjoy it. I think a few tweaks can be made to make it better, and I've already talked to some people with the Striders and at VAS about making some of those changes. That said, I'll admit that I'll be glad to get the final race scored and the series totaled up. Doing the scoring isn't so bad for the first few races, but the more performances I have to track, the more difficult it becomes. Right now I'm just using a spreadsheet that I designed. It works pretty well, but if anyone knows of any good race series scoring programs (or methods) out there, let me know. I'm all ears.