Lincoln Memorial Half Marathon (Read 617 times)

Great morning for a race in Springfield, IL. Temperature at 7:30 was about 38. Plenty of sun. There were about 800 finishers. This was my first HM in about 10 years. I had no idea of what pace I was going to be able to hold. I have really only been running seriously again since Jan 1 and have not road raced (prior to this year) in about a decade. I had no idea what to expect this morning. I sort of planned on 6:40's at a HR of about 173 or so. Didn't happen. Locked in around 6:20 with a HR at 180 and pretty much stayed there the whole race +/- 10 seconds. The last 4 miles were very, very hilly and I discovered having big legs is a plus when running up hills. Found a running buddy in my age group and we stayed together through about mile 8. We actually chatted all the way to that point and kept telling each other we needed to slow down. He did slow down, I did not. I kept waiting to start sucking because I honestly didn't think I could maintain a 180 HR for that long. My 5K HR has been around 180 so far this year, so I was waiting for the ball to drop. It never did. The race drink was Accelerade. I grabbed about 4 cups of it and spilled most of it. It does taste nasty. Didn't think I would need to take on any real energy for a HM and I was right. I didn't even drink much water, probably less than 8 ounces. I was in 15th place at the 7 mile marker. Went through 10 miles in 1:03. Reeled in 4 people on one hill around mile 11 and finished strong in 1:22:59. 11th overall, 4th in AG of 70. I was comfortable the entire race. I never felt like I was breathing hard and I was up on the front of my feet the whole way. Thanks to MikeyMike and Jeff for the tapering advice which I sort of followed. I adopted the idea and just tweaked it a little bit. 5K next Saturday, 10K the Saturday after that. Speed workouts. I have a full M next month and will shoot for <3:00. >

Sweet work Marcus! You are gonna bust that marathon. Too bad the 4:1 race drink didn't taste any good

Holy cow dude. Awesome race--amazing when you run that much faster than even you thought. Great job.

Great race Marcus! My first 1/2 is next Saturday and I'd be thrilled to come in with a time 20 minutes behind yours. You mentioned the tapering advice that MikeyMike and Jeff gave you. Is their advice on these forums somewhere? With the success you had, I'd be interested in reading it too.

Way to go, Marcus! Congratulations. Awesome race.

You ready?

For Monkey? Sheeee-iiiittt. For everyone else that threw some love my way, thanks a bunch!!!! Although my DW, DD, and DM were there they don't 'get' it like y'all do. I don't really have any local runner friends so this is my only forum to talk all things running. Thanks for reading.

Just look at my log and compare volume and intensity over the last two weeks. I ran 20 less miles this week and took it pretty easy on pace. You don't need to copy it exactly, just cut back on intensity the last three days before the race. That's pretty much all that I did. Good luck!!!

Thanks!