Notes
The start of the race a little bit of a mess. It was pretty obvious that they ended up with more runners than originally planned. After warming up by jogging from to car (stuck in a long line to get into the parking area) and around to find a bathroom, I got to the starting line just a few minutes before the gun. It was a great day for the race. Low 30's at the start warming into the low 50's by the finish. Winds out of the NNE of 10-20 mph, but that's a low wind day for pancake flat central Illinois.
The first mile was into the wind, so I tried to duck in behind some of the faster half marathoners. As it turned out, I chose too fast of halfers and seemingly went through the first mile in 4:57. As I cursed myself, I noticed there was actually two mile 1 markers (why not, right?), and I crossed the second one in 5:21. Still too fast, but not as much of a rookie mistake. I was able to slow myself to a more reasonable pace for miles 2 and 3, but in mile 4, I decided to maintain pace with a guy I knew was in the marathon (the eventual winner), and rattled off a couple of faster miles. After mile 5, I realized that I was working too hard... my breathing was heavier than it should be, and I reminded myself that I need to run my race, the race I trained for.... so I let the Kenyan fellow go and slowed a bit. I fell into a groove and started rattling off 5:40-5:45 miles like clockwork, and they just felt...right. I had two or three half marathoners catch up and it was difficult to let them go by, but I kept repeating to myself to run MY race. We finally turned so we had the wind at our backs for a while and I was able to pick up the pace a bit. I went through the half in 1:14 low and thought to myself, what the hell have you gotten yourself into. As we worked our way across town with the wind, I thought about how much it was going to suck to turn back into the wind for miles 18-24... and sure enough, it did. 19-21 were really rough. At 19.5, I got the mother of all side stitches... bad enough that it altered my stride... and about a mile later I went through a terrible dark patch. I really though the wheels had started to fall off. Thankfully, the side stitch faded for the most part, and the 3rd place guy started to come back at me around this point, aIlowing me to focus on reeling him in. About mile 22, I officially decided that the wheels hadn't fallen off, and it was time to suck it up and finish this damn race. I passed the 3rd place guy about a mile later and cruised through the 23-26. "Enjoyed" weaving through the mass of half marathon finishers when the courses merged at mile 26. Finished up the final 0.2mi with a roar from the crowd and some high fives from the Fam.
mile 1 - 5:21
mile 2 - 5:40
mile 3 - 5:41
mile 4 - 5:36
mile 5 - 5:24
mile 6 - 5:46
mile 7 - 5:45
mile 8 - 5:45
mile 9 - 5:41
mile 10 - 5:42
mile 11 - 5:50
mile 12 - 5:42
mile 13 - 5:40
mile 14 - 5:33
mile 15 - 5:40
mile 16 - 5:40
mile 17 - 5:42
mile 18 - 5:38
mile 19 - 5:44
mile 20 - 5:42
mile 21 - 5:45
mile 22 - 5:42
mile 23 - 5:40
mile 24 - 5:34
mile 25 - 5:40
mile 26.2 - 6:43