Notes
Rivertown Races half-marathon. Absolutely a perfect morning to race. Overcast, 45ish degrees and light winds. Course was all through the trails and roads of Millennium Park. First in-person race in 13 months! And boy, it felt good to be back. Not much different than many other road races besides less people and masks at the start/finish area. Luckily, some good competition showed up (Ripley & Todd Buckingham). We got out together but fairly slow. The first 2 miles were very relaxed and we were just chatting as most of the field was in contact. I threw in a surge the 3rd mile which separated us 3 from the rest of the field. Settled back in until mile 6 when Ripley threw down the first real hard move. I was able to respond but Buckingham had to back off. We hit that mile in 5:09 and I knew I couldn't hold that so I backed off and equilibrated. Ripley continued to hold right around 5:10 as I found a rhythm in the 5:15-5:20 range. Got to 10 miles feeling somewhat smooth. Last 5k was tough as it was twisting and windy with a couple steep uphills and downhills. I was starting to feel it and broke everything up into 5 minute segments mentally. Got to the finish line strong, felt pumped, couldn't complain with roughly a minute PR. Was disappointed to just miss sub-70 but my goal coming in was sub-71 so mission accomplished. Ended up 2nd to Ripley who ran 69:28 and that wasn't all out for him as he video taped with a GoPro about 25% of the race. Just really happy to be competing against others. I realized during the race I really did miss it.
Splits: 5:32-5:39-5:19-5:27-5:21-5:09-5:17-5:17-5:12-5:22-5:12-5:16-5:15-51 seconds for the last .12. 53:35 at 10 miles.
After looking at my splits, I'm certain the course was 50-60 meters long. I did not crawl the last 200 meters and if I just held steady pace, I should have hit the last .12 in 39-40 seconds. I bet I hit the actually half marathon 10-12 seconds faster which is a bummer because that's the difference between sub-70 and 70:06. I'm probably getting greedy but 69:55ish sounds way cooler than 70:06. On my cool down with Hyde and some of the RunGR guys, they were discussing that all their GPS watches had the course at 13.2ish miles (which is expected) but apparently the finish line used to be before the start line on the finishing straightaway (they were the same line today). Even the course map doesn't mark the start and finish in the same exact spot so I'm certain that's where the extra distance came from. Besides that though, the race was very well ran. Well marked course, mile markers every mile, volunteers directing you at every turn, etc. Would highly recommend.
Lastly, based on conversion calculators, this is now my most impressive PR. This converts to roughly a 15:08 5k, 31:30 10k and 48:35 15k. Like I said after that hard 10k effort, that I felt I could hold 5:14 pace for another 5-6k and 48:35 is 5:13 pace so I judged my shape pretty accurately. I also thought I was in 31:30-31:40 10k shape after that effort.