I ran the Mercedes half marathon in Birmingham this weekend. I did not see any other Pine Belt People. It was an excellent but hilly course. There were over 4000 runners for the half marathon. The weather was only a little cold with start time at about 32 and it warmed up to about 44 during the race. Compared to the Mobile First Light race this was actually warm. I did not hydrate well in Mobile, and paid the price and this time I was sure not to let that happen. I drank so much that even though I went to the bathroom only 15 minutes before start time I had to stop only a mile into the race and go behind a building and I lost about 50 seconds (I really had to go bad). Obviously I need to be somewhere in the middle with my hydration situation, though I did end this race much stronger in the last 3 miles. My final time on my Garmin was 1:30:43, I stopped my Garmin while I was taking care of business, and my official chip time for the race was 1:31:37. Still it was good enough to win my age group. I figure this will be my last hard run before the Mardi Gras marathon and it certainly was better than a training run. I recommend this race to everybody.

Neil Solomon