My take on that is that you're bound by the 1 year 5 mile restriction as of the termination of your employment.
Even though that written contract designated a specific period of employment you have admitted that your employment continued under the same terms and conditions year after year.
Even without that admission, the contract is an executory contract which means that an item of performance is not performed during the contract period but at some future time after the contract expires.
Your obligation continued to be postponed year after year while you continued working for the company.
The good news is that you can work in the same field as long as you do it more than 5 miles from your employer's business and the bad news is that you can't touch any of his clients for a year.
Ohio courts will enforce a restrictive covenant if it is reasonable in duration and geographical limit.
I've studied non-competes for many years (I was a victim of one a long time ago) and 5 miles and 1 year is really the low end of limitations and is likely to be enforced by a court.
However, there are numerous factors that a court would consider in analyzing even that limitation.
The following website has a history of Ohio case decisions with regard to restrictive covenants. It's a good read and case rulings are cited.
http://www.myemploymentlawyer.com/Oh...icle-cases.htm
Here's a couple of scenarios for you to consider:
1 - You leave your current employer. You get a job more than 5 miles away and you lay off his clients. After a year you are home free and nobody made any lawyers happy.
2 - You ignore your contract and get a job within 5 miles and immediately start poaching clients. Your former employer serves you with a summons and complaint. Unfortunately, whether or not the lawsuit has merit is irrelevant at that point because you have to hire a lawyer to defend you. That's going to cost you $10,000 to $20,000 and you could lose. Meantime, your new job suffers because of the pressure of the lawsuit and your new employer decides he doesn't want the hassle and fires you. Now you're out of a job, no income, and still defending a lawsuit.
3 - You leave your current employer and immediately file a lawsuit seeking a declaratory judgment quashing the restrictive covenants for whatever grounds your lawyer can come up with. It's still going to cost you $10,000 to $20,000 and you might or might not still have the same pressures while trying to make a living on a new job.

