Notes
What a great Sunday. I ran a PR in this race, played in the NCC golf scramble and watched the Bears beat the Eagles on Sunday Night Football.
This race went so much better than the Banco Popular 1/2 marathon 2 weeks previous. It was a much smaller race in Calumet City, which is a pretty rough town. I got there nice and early, registered, used the facilities and got my warm up in, all in a very relaxed manor. I didn't wear a shirt - yeah, I was one of "those guys" - which felt nice.
I wasn't sure how things would go today. Actually, my confidence had been down in the week leading up to this. My runs felt like crap this week and I was just so tired that I was having doubts. I even weighed 5 lbs more this morning than a week ago. (Must have lost it Sunday because I was down 6 today) The day of the race I just felt good for some reason. I didn't get great sleep the night before (never do on race day) but the previous two nights were good.
My focus throughout the race was to run smooth and even paced. I went out in 5:36 and stayed on that pace just gradually building after 10K. There was some wind coming from the North. The course was nice and flat but took many turns through the neighborhood. I never saw anyone other than the Police car leading the way. It wasn't until today (Tuesday) that the results were posted and I saw the 2nd place guy was 4 minutes back.
Somewhere around 8-10 miles I started to have some pain and tightness in my stomach. It wasn't bad but was uncomfortable. Other than that, the miles were going by smooth and easy. It wasn't until 11 that it started to get hard and then it got real hard the last mile.
My split at 12 and it was 5:41. The previous two were 5:18 and 5:27. I thought back to the Banco where I really died the last two. I didn't want that to happen again so I fought to regain my rhythm, get my breathing under control and fight the pain. The last mile I just gave it everything I had. There was no marker for 13 but the last 1.109375 miles were a 5:27 average. I hadn't put any goal times on this race other than to do better than Banco and hopefully be under 1:14. When I saw the finish line clock reading 1:12, I was surprised and thrilled.
If I never race this distance again, I can be happy with this time.
Now to go after 10 miles and shorter races for the remainder of the year.