Over the past few posts, I’ve discussed the races that I’ve done over the recent months. My overall goal race was the Garmin Marathon in April, but I had looked forward to tackling the Hospital Hill Run Half Marathon which occurred on June 1, 2019. I was a bit worried doing back-to-back half marathons, but this was a race that I’ve always wanted to run because of the numerous hills. So, I put down my money and accepted the challenge.

The race begins and ends at Crown Center in the downtown area of Kansas City. The route goes north up to Truman Road (just south of I-670) and cuts over to turn south down to the Country Club Plaza and then back north to Crown Center. For anyone not familiar with this area of Kansas City, this includes a lot of hills, for which this race has a reputation.

The weather was beautiful and only a little humid. There were thousands lined up with me, making for a fantastic running experience. 5K and 10K runners also ran along with us, peeling off at different parts of the race. It was fun to be able to cheer them on as they turned to finish, but even more encouraging were their cheers for us as we continued farther on down the road.

This is the largest race I’ve been in, but it was well organized. There were frequent water & Gatorade stops with tables and volunteers on both sides of the road. I’m used to having one or two table-lengths of cups and volunteers from my experience at previous races; however, there were like six to eight lengths of tables on both sides of the road with people passing out water and Gatorade. I was never left lacking for water along this route. As noted in my pictures, I did wear my water belt, but was never in need of using my own water except when I chose to have a Gu Gel earlier than the first Gu stop. 

I ran with the 2:20 pacer the whole race, but he encouraged me to pick up my speed when we reached mile 12. We had steadily gained time with each mile, which was amazing considering the number of hills encountered on this route. With the gained time and the much faster last mile (which is almost all downhill), I was able to finish the race at 2:15:27.

In addition to the massive medal that was placed around my neck upon crossing the finish line, a cold, wet towel was placed over the back of my neck and was absolutely fantastic. This will come in handy on future runs and bike rides. 

Boulevard Brewing Co was at the finish line festivities, handing out full pours of Easy Sport, their tasty “sports drink”; it was quite refreshing and made for a great end to a great morning.