Race Report: Chicago Distance Classic Half-Marathon

I was a tad nervous entering my first half-marathon distance race on Sunday. I felt under-trained and unprepared. Since Grandma's Marathon in late June, I think I've only run 3 long runs, none of them consistently timed, and none further than 12 miles. However, I had begun doing speed work once a week and biking regularly on non-running days. I set an ambitious goal for myself to qualify for the D Corral at the marathon. I had never run even close to an 8:30 pace on a long run, but wanted to give it a shot.

I can now say without hesitation that the Distance Classic was a break-through race for me. On race morning the temps were in the low 60s, completely unreal for mid-August. I woke up early to go downtown with Cassie to help set up their tent in the charity village. Saturday night I was at the White Sox and Red Sox game at The Cell, and so it goes without saying that I didn't get an adequate amount of sleep, although I was good at the game and stayed hydrated with water and gatorade instead of eating junk food and drinking beer. It was chilly downtown at 4:30 in the morning, but I was feeling good. After meeting up with a few friends before the race, Jon, Erik and Kevin, I went to the starting corral and lined-up with Jon.

I wanted to line-up near the 1:50 pacer, but it was impossible to get close since it was so packed, so I was actually near the 2:00 pacer. The race waves started and I saw the 1:50 pacer go with the second wave, but I was stuck with the third wave. While I appreciated the wave start, I already felt like I had failed at my goal since I was left to my own devices to qualify. After about 5 minutes of waiting, our wave was off and running. I wanted to keep my pace around 9 min/mile for the first half, and then 8:30 or faster the second half. I had some issues with my watch at the one-mile marker, if you see my split below was over 9 min. It was actually about 8:50 and the second mile was closer to 8:45. The rest of my splits were as follows:

Mile Splits:
Mile 1: 9:16
Mile 2: 8:22
Mile 3: 8:39
Mile 4: 8:45
Mile 5: 8:37
Mile 6: 8:21
Mile 7: 10:09
Mile 8: 8:23
Mile 9: 8:12
Mile 10: 8:48
Mile 11: 7:46
Mile 12: 8:05
Mile 13: 8:21
Mile .1: :53

You're probably wondering what happened at Mile 6-7. I'll come back to that. I felt great through about 11 and a half miles, then it got painful. I took 2 clif shot blocks right before the race and at miles 5 and 10, in addition I also sipped Gatorade during the race. Instead of drinking the entire cup like I have done in previous races, I just drank a little and it made a big difference because it allowed me to run through each water stop and I didnt over-drink like I did in Duluth. The second half of my race was about 6 minutes faster than the first, so I had a great negative split.

After my 10 minute mile at the half-way point I felt the qualifying time slipping away so I picked up the pace despite fears that I was going to bonk big time. When I hit mile 12, I was pretty sure that I would miss the D Corral qualifier, since I was pretty spent and needed to run close to a 7 min. final mile. I wanted to stop running so badly during the last mile, but I held on and finished in 1:52:33, which is an average pace of 8:36 per mile. I ran the entire 13.1 without walking once, which was another break-through for me.

After looking through my splits following the race, I was completely baffled by what happened between miles 6 and 7. I knew that I hadn't slowed my pace that much. I hadnt even run over a 9 minute mile the entire race. I felt the distance must have been off by a bit, but of course could not prove anything. While I was disappointed to miss the D Corral qualifier time I was extremely happy with how well I ran. I left feeling like a sub 4 hour marathon was well within my grasp.

I spent the next couple hours cheering on runners near the 13 mile mark and had a great time. The race was well-organized and the course was beautiful. I have only two complaints: No GU or Clif Shots were provided on the course, and the tech t-shirt was HUGE. I think I will drown if I wear it running. Otherwise, I'd definitely recommend this race, although the weather will probably never again be this perfect for a mid-August race ever again.

P.S. Yesterday, on my way home from work I got a text from my friend Jon. It turns out that the course was measured incorrectly and was actually about .2 miles longer at the half-way turnaround. I knew it! The Chicago Marathon adjusted their qualifying time for CDC finishers to make the D Corral to 1:53, so I qualified like I hoped! My average pace was 8:29 for 13.1 miles. I am thrilled that I reached my goal and that I have an even better chance now of running a sub 4 hour marathon in October. Two months to go! Let the hard training begin.

Race Report: Elvis Is Alive 5k

Long time no blog. Since I last posted in June after Grandma's Marathon, I've recovered from that race nicely, struggled to start training for Chicago in October, struggled to be motivated to run in the heat and humidity, started doing weekly speed workouts at the North Park University Track, biked to work about once a week for cross-training, and panicked that the Distance Classic is soon and that I havent done a long run of more than 12 miles since the marathon. So as you can tell, it's been a bit of a roller coaster ride.

The Elvis 5k last year was my first race ever, so it's fun to think about how far I've come in the course of one year. Lots of training, shorter races and a couple marathons have passed. Several friends wanted to run the race with us since we gave it such a good review last year. While last year was typical hot and humid August weather, this year we were blessed with cool and breezy temps in the low 70s. It felt like a September race. The race course moved downtown to Grant Park, which was convenient since I work downtown. The course changed a bit at the last minute because of a pre-season Bears game, but Fleet Feet handled it all very well with email communications.

I ran very well and PR'd for a 5k with a time of 23:35. That isn't official because its not a chip-timed race, but its based on my Garmin watch so I trust it. I was hoping for a time closer to 23 flat, but it was difficult to break open on the first mile on the crowded and narrow lakeshore path. I usually have more energy for a kick at the end, but felt pretty spent. All in all, a great speed workout for the week.

Mile Splits:
Mile 1: 8:08
Mile 2: 7:36
Mile 3: 7:14
Mile .1: :35

The post-race party was a blast with an Elvis impersonator concert and Goose Island 312, which tasted amazing. It's a great atmosphere, if you have never run this race before, I highly recommend it for next year.

Race Report: Grandma's Marathon

Friday: Expo Day

Cassie and I drove into Duluth and immediately went to the Expo on Friday afternoon. The Expo was alright; the expo room in the DECC is a pretty small space considering the number of people there. My only issue was that there was no Grandma's Marathon technical wear to buy. Everything was cotton. I hope they get an apparel sponsor in the future because I would love to have a shirt to wear running. The highlight of the expo was meeting hometown running hero Dick Beardsley. I talked with him for a couple minutes and he signed my bib number. He's a super nice guy, and I hope I get to see him again someday. Packet pick-up was super easy and we went to Michelina's Spaghetti Dinner at the DECC to fill up on carbs. The food was great and just what we needed after a day and a half of driving through Wisconsin and eating too much junk food. We made our way to our friends home for dinner, and after a quick trip to SuperOne for some gatorade, peanut butter, bagels, bananas and sunscreen, we went to bed early.

Saturday: Race Day

We woke up at 4:45 a.m. feeling pretty good after 8 hours of sleep. After getting ready we made ourselves some peanut butter bagels and walked to the University of Minnesota, Duluth campus to catch a bus to the race start. We waited in line for 10-15 minutes before boarding a bus and heading to Two Harbors. There were no issues driving to the race start since it was early and the buses were the only traffic. The weather was really nice and cool in the morning with a nice breeze. The skies were clear, so it was looking to be a sunny day with temps in the 60s and low 70s. After arriving we made a couple trips through the port-o-potty lines and went to the race start. It was a nice atmosphere and I was feeling good. It took us about 5-6 minutes to walk up to the starting line once the race started, but after that we were able to immediately jump into our race pace of around 10 minutes/mile.

The course was beautiful and Cassie and I had a great race. We were strong and kept a nice pace through about 20 miles, then we needed to start taking walking breaks. I started getting some stomach cramps around 21-22 miles, mostly I think because of the Ultima. That stuff was nasty.

The people of Two Harbors and Duluth really come out and support this race. There were a lot of supporters on the course not just in Duluth, but along Highway 61 in the middle of nowhere. There were also many Elvi, bands, musicians and Al Franken. That's right. Al Franken. We ran past him around the 9-10 mile marker and thought we were seeing things, then when we passed him around mile 17-18 again I got my picture taken with him.

Our mile splits according to my watch, which slightly vary from our chip time:

Mile 1: 9:53
Mile 2: 9:45

Mile 3: 9:45

Mile 4: 9:28

Mile 5: 9:29

Mile 6: 9:56

Mile 7: 9:37

Mile 8: 10:00

Mile 9: 9:53

Mile 10: 9:29

Mile 11: 9:59

Mile 12: 10:07

Mile 13: 10:08

Mile 14: 9:41

Mile 15: 9:40

Mile 16: 11:52

Mile 17: 11:06

Mile 18: 9:56

Mile 19: 9:56

Mile 20: 13:35

Mile 21: 13:11

Mile 22: 11:23

Mile 23: 10:55

Mile 24: 12:20

Mile 25: 11:41

Mile 26: 10:12
Mile .2: 2:07

We finished in a chip time of 4:35:04, which was a lot better than we expected, especially since the course seemed alot hillier than expected. We just aren't able to train for that in Chicago, no matter how big the hills. I loved the race and would definitely do it again in the future. Wading in Lake Superior after the race was really nice...but even too cold to stay in for long. I do believe that it helped our recovery though, because we were feeling okay the day after the race and within three days we were pretty much back to normal. My recovery for Grandma's was a LOT better than AZ in January.

Thanks to the organizers of Grandma's and the people of Two Harbors and Duluth for a great race weekend.

A Minnesota 20 miler

We were up in the Twin Cities this past weekend for my sister's wedding. We took a couple days off from work for the trip and got up north on Wednesday night. Friday morning we left our hotel to drive downtown near the Mississppi river for our 20 mile long run. After doing some research on MapMyRun and the MDRA website I determined our best route to get in the miles and not get completely lost was to run along the Grand Rounds River Byway. It was a great path along the Mississippi and Minnehaha rivers. We planned to do two 5 mile out and backs in each direction to keep our car as a central point so we could have Gatorade and water. The weather was a little on the warm side in the mid 60s, but still very manageable.

We forget how spoiled we are on the lakeshore in Chicago. I assummed there would be plenty of water fountains along the path, but it took us 5 miles to find our first fountain, which actually was a water pump. The Minnehaha path followed a nice quiet river through some parks, a golf course, nice neighborhoods, and a couple lakes. It reminded me of the River Path in Chicago in some ways, but it was a smaller river and a bigger park. There weren't many runners out on Friday, but we did see several bikers. At the 5 mile mark with the water pump we turned around and went back to the car. On the way back we did find one more water fountain with about 2 miles left.

After a brief break at the car to take some GU and Gatorade we set out north along the Mississippi for the last 10 miles. The path had been very flat until this point when it decided to go downhill a ways very close to the river. Going downhill is fine until you have to go back the other direction. We made it about 3 miles when the path came to a closed off fence area near the I-35W bridge which collapsed last year. I was suprised to see lots of torn and twisted pieces of metal from the bridge lying out behind the fence. We were forced to turn around a couple miles early and head back to the other direction, after a mile we were able to find a water fountain with some gross milky looking water. We were so thirsty that we would have drank anything though. It was getting warmer and we hit the hill so we walked back up a little bit before running to the car for another GU and Gatorade break.

We still needed to run 4 more miles to complete our training run, so we set out 2 miles in the other direction towards the Minnehaha river again. Cassie and I were both feeling the distance considerably at this point so our run had slowed to more of a shuffle. We found the fountain again after 2 miles and then shuffled back to the car to finish the run. On the last mile I started loosening up again despite the pain, and ended feeling strong. I think our 22 mile day two weeks ago was a more difficult run for me.

We're returned to Chicago on Sunday afternoon and ran a nice 5 miler along the river. It's such a great feeling to complete that final long run. Now we just have a couple shorter long runs for our taper period and we're driving to Duluth for Grandma's Marathon on June 21st. I am already looking forward to a victory wade in cold Lake Superior after running 26.2 miles. It's going to be sweet.

Race Report: Soldier Field 10 mile

We woke up at 5:30 this morning to get ready for the race. Cassie and I picked up Jon and Sara at 6 a.m. and we drove downtown to the race start at Soldier Field. After some traffic near the museum campus we were able to park easily and walk up to the start with about 25 minutes to spare. The weather was perfect for a distance race in the low 50s at the start. I thought I would need a long sleeved shirt, but I ended up going with a short-sleeved shirt right before we began. This ended up being a great decision as it warmed up very quickly during the race with the sun out and no cloud cover.

The race started at 7:30 a.m. There were about 7,500 runners, so it took us about 8-9 minutes just to get past the starting line and it was slow-moving during the first mile. The race course headed south along Lake Shore Drive for about 4 and a half miles and then cut back and returned north to Soldier Field, with a fantastic race finish on the 50 yard line.

My goal was to finish the race in less than 90 minutes, since I just missed that mark by 7 seconds during the Lakefront 10 miler a month earlier. My strategy was similar to the LF10; keeping a nice easy close to 9 min. pace for the first 7 miles or so and then pushing it on the last 3.

I felt really good during the race. I spent alot of time and energy weaving around other runners and passing them, but it was sort of a fun game to keep my mind occupied. It was really a beautiful course. I particularly liked heading north on the lakeshore path with a great view of the skyline. I never run much further south than Navy Pier so it was a treat to be running on new ground. Around mile 7 I knew that I'd have to pick it up to make it in under 90 minutes. I felt fine until about the last half-mile when I was feeling a little sick and mentally exhausted. When I emerged onto the field I saw that I had about a minute to spare and so I kicked it into the 50 yard line and finished the race in a chip time of 1:29:34 with 26 seconds to spare. I hadnt eaten anything before the race so I was really nauseated and hungry and the Gatorade wasnt sitting well. It didnt really help to get ushered into the crowded, hot concourse and I had a hard time finding some recovery snacks, but eventually we found it and were on our way.

The stats according to my watch (they vary slightly from my chip time):
Average lap: 8:58 miles
Splits:
Mile 1: 10:00
Mile 2: 9:15
Mile 3: 9:03
Mile 4: 9:28
Mile 5: 8:58
Mile 6: 9:10
Mile 7: 8:58
Mile 8: 8:35
Mile 9: 8:19
Mile 10: 7:51

How's that for some nice negative splits? All in all, a great race. I still can't imagine keeping this pace for an entire marathon, but with some speedwork and tempo runs this summer, that is exactly what I want to accomplish at the Chicago Marathon. This was my last race before Grandma's Marathon on June 21. Cassie and I have our 20 mile run this weekend while were up in the Twin Cities, and then there is nothing left but the taper.